


DDKM + Tumblr X-Post Collection

by themikeymonster



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5116535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various drabbles I posted to the Daredevil Kinkmeme or Tumblr, all collected here. Likely will be where my drabbles go now that Tumblr has killed tag-tracking. </p><p>Each entry stands separately unless otherwise indicated, largely MattFoggy because hardcore shippertrash right here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SleeperAgent!Karen, Gen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if it's Karen and the reason she knows how to use a gun is because she's killed 20 people?  
> http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=8057493#cmt8057493

* * *

* * *

 

  
It's different, remembering it.  
  
You see, Karen doesn't usually remember it. She wakes up - 'wakes up' - and there are signs of a struggle. There is blood on her clothes. A button on her dress is missing and a nail is chipped or sometimes there is blood beneath her nails and bruises on her forearms, scratches -  
  
Her muscles ache, maybe, from exertion when she 'wakes up', sitting on a chair in front of the TV. Maybe she won't always notice the aches because they aren't muscles she uses regularly, but she'll flex her arm and there it is. And she'll carefully work them and slowly realize that she had pulled in toward her chest. There will be sore spots on her jaw, on her shoulder, not bruising but suggesting hits.  
  
(Like someone's head, rolling desperately as the life is choked out of them.)  
  
So that's the first sign she has that she didn't actually kill Daniel Fisher. Most of it's familiar enough - the blacking out, the loss of time. What isn't familiar is waking up beside the body, inside her own home, still covered in the evidence. What isn't familiar is being caught, immediately, by the cops and being taken to jail.  
  
This is not a part of whatever is wrong with her. She thinks: _I am too useful to toss away like this_ and hates herself a bit.  
  
She doesn't black out. She doesn't, and she doesn't, and she doesn't lose time or wake up (or 'wake up' ) with signs of anything having happened, and she thinks that whoever has done this to her knows that her position is too precarious for her to be of use right now  
  
(and she's thankful).  
  
Moving across the country and making friends has never stopped it from happening before, but she still tries. She burrows her way into Matt and Foggy's lives, nestles herself right in the middle of it and never, ever turns down Foggy's offers of friendship. Ignores the flirting for the most part, and hopes maybe it will end. That maybe it's ended.  
  
Then that smug asshole sets a gun on the table in front of her, like she's going to be scared of it. And he _threatens her_ , threatens the people around her, _threatens her friends_ , good people who are just trying to make things right - like this is going to make her flinch, or back down. He clearly has _no idea_ who he is fucking with.  
  
It's different, remembering it. Having done it of her own free will, having made the decision to do it with her own heart, her own brain. She'd bared her teeth and shot him, and shot him again, and again. And she's scared, maybe, remembering it.  
  
Not of _what_ she's done, but why. It had felt _empowering_ , like when her hands had closed around that gun, she was really closing her hands around her own life and _taking charge of it_. And that's a little wrong, a little scary, but her life had already been wrong and scary before all of this, and back then she hadn't had a choice.  
  
She has a choice now. She knows how to make it, and what it feels like.  
  
He is not the first man she's killed, just the first one she's _meant to_. And unless she's stopped, he won't be the last -  
  
(And maybe she'll even _mean to_ kill the next one, too.)


	2. True Love's Kiss, M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I like the time limit thing. Puts some more urgency into it. Though I'd think the immediate threat of harm to Foggy would be enough for Matt to get over himself and try a kiss a lot earlier, because he'd feel like he had to try everything even if he thought it wouldn't work. Which cuts the story off a bit too soon for my liking. 
> 
> http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/5006.html?thread=10686862#cmt10686862

* * *

 

 

  
"You what," Foggy says, tightly. Funny thing, that. The (admittedly, very attractive) metal choker that's curling over his throat and part of his upper chest, is also very tight.   
  
(He still can't figure out how it got on him. Stupid advanced Asgardian magi-tech, he figures. Fucking Avengers. Every time he lets Matt talk him into spending social time with the Avengers, shit like this happens. Never again, Foggy swears, much like he's sworn probably nine times before.  
  
It's just that Matt doesn't have a lot of places he asks Foggy to, that's all. One of these times, Foggy is going to hold his ground. Supposing Matt didn't make one of his sad faces, he was going to hold his ground.)  
  
Thor looks both heroic, grave, and woe-begone. Like a very large, noble rescue dog, who has only just noticed that the person he is trying to rescue is not in the least bit in need of rescuing, and he has, in fact, made the situation worse. "It's an old tradition, like this 'Pin the Tail on Donkey' game you play," Thor explains, which leads Foggy to believe that Clint and Possibly Stark have been the ones to explain party games to Thor, what the fuck. Didn't Thor have a rational girlfriend to educate him on her culture? Seriously, what the fuck.   
  
"Okay, sorry, no," Foggy says. "No - 'True Love's Kiss or Die' is not anything at all like 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey!'"  
  
"Asgardians are much more heartily built than your people," Thor says with dismay. "It's but a gentle squeeze -"  
  
"I'm going to get my ribs broken and my throat squished if I don't find my True Love's kiss," Foggy mutters faintly. "Oh God, I can see it now, I'm going to have to kiss all of Manhattan. Maybe New York City. Oh - I'm going to have to kiss _Brett_ -"  
  
At that point, Matt, who has been lurking nearby and kind of menacing at Thor and Stark and the Avengers at large, grabs Foggy and lays one on him. It's short, terse, and too wet, and Matt's fingers dig into his jaw and shoulder too tightly.   
  
"Alright, one down," Matt snaps, pulling away to point aggressively at the Avengers, "The rest of you: line up."   
  
"Wait, what," Stark says, but he's interrupted by a sudden metallic clatter. Because Foggy had kind of failed at catching the stupid thing when it abruptly withdrew from around his neck and chest and fell off.   
  
They all kind of stand around staring at it for a few moments in stunned silence, and then Matt says, small and quiet, "Oh."   
  
"Well, that was the shortest crisis ever," Clint points out helpfully. "Congrats on the True Love, I guess."


	3. Teach him how to dance, M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So no one ever taught Matt how to dance (formal style, either ballroom or the half-assed twirls you do at a wedding). Foggy thinks this is a tragedy and immediately tries to rectify the situation. 
> 
> http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/5006.html?thread=10066574#cmt10066574

* * *

 

  
"Dude - buddy," Foggy corrects himself, "Can you even lead?"   
  
The laugh that trips out of Matt's mouth is unintentional; awkward and self-conscious, because - "Um," he says, "Letting the - the blind guy lead seems like a bad idea."   
  
"Huh. Even if you knew the room?"   
  
Matt is parked awkwardly at the door, clutching his cane to his chest. He has to admit to himself that his palms are wet around it, that his thumb joints are pressed hard against his chest. If nothing else, he can smell the sour-acrid hints of his own body reacting to the situation at hand.   
  
Truthfully, Matt is always aware of the dimensions of any room he spends a few minutes in, and a few more minutes usually give him a good idea of most obstacles present. But that's not the kind of thing he can really admit to, is it?   
  
"Well. I could probably successfully turn in a circle," he says, offer a smile. He hopes it doesn't look as tight as it feels. Matt can't remember when was the last time he was always under so much pressure. He's not sure what it is about Foggy that sets his nerves on edge - he has a love/hate relationship with it. It's not exactly a bad feeling, but it's exhausting.   
  
"Oh, yeah," Foggy says. "That awkward high-school prom two-step? Oh, that's sad. Du- Buddy, just leave it to me, we'll have you sweeping the ladies off their feet in no time."  
  
A wary noise escapes him. "That's probably also a bad idea," he says, but then Foggy's clicks something on his laptop and the tinny speakers begin to play something old and brassy. Matt knocks his head against the wall with the force of which the laugh barks out of him.   
  
"Oh, you okay?" Foggy sounds concerned as he comes closer, and Matt ruefully rubs the back of his head, mouth still twisted in a grin. "Hey, this is classic music, I'll have you know!"  
  
"And I'm supposed to dance to this?" Matt asks incredulously.   
  
"You can actually dance to anything you like, but this is Foggy's House of Hip Swang, so we dance to my tastes. Besides, it's perfect mood music," Foggy says. He reaches out, tapping along Matt's forearm before he closes his hands on Matt's cane, pulling it easily from his grasp. "Okay, wallflower," he says. "We'll start from the basics."  
  
Matt allows himself one last groan of protest, but he already knows Foggy well enough by this time that he knows that the quickest way through this is to go with it. Foggy pulls him to the center of their room, then slips his hand into Matt's with such surprising ease that Matt is threading his fingers through Foggy's like it's the most natural thing in the world.   
  
"Okay," Foggy says, then, "Uh," and he pulls Matt's other hand up. There's an awkward moment where he tries to figure out how to place Matt's hand on the shoulder of the hand doing the guiding in the first place, but Matt takes pity on him and latches on all on his own.   
  
"Okay, now what," Matt asks, still laughing a bit about the absurdity of all of this. Just - everything. Every part of this. Everyone else had let Matt duck out when it came to dancing, but not Foggy.   
  
"Well, now we put our hips into it," Foggy says, then immediately amends himself: "Well, if we were doing Salsa, but that's a bit advanced. Probably no one will ask you to swing dance, but that's what I'm going to teach you."   
  
Matt cocks his head. He's vaguely familiar with the idea of a swing dance - well. He knows there's a dance that's called a swing dance, and apparently swing music. And something about WWII? Probably WWII, going by the era this music sounds like it was recorded in. "Why swing dance then?"   
  
"Well, that's what I started with, okay, so we're recreating childhood memories for me, here. Actually, we're already creating better memories than my childhood," he admits, frank and honest. "I mean, unlike Elsie O'Malley, you're not crying, so."   
  
His mouth twists because Foggy expects it to, Matt can tell from the conversational cues, but he doesn't feel much like smiling. He finds himself unaccountably annoyed at Elsie O'Malley.   
  
Foggy must see something on his face, because he hurries along. "Okay, so, we're going to lead with our joined hands - for a given value of 'leading' - and the rest is all shoulders and feet, so -"   
  
The thing is, Matt's body almost starts to follow. At this range, with four inches between them, Matt is sharply aware of Foggy's body and what it's doing - can certainly hear Foggy's heart, beating slightly faster than normal, and smell the anxiety, acrid and sour - and Matt was taught to predict his opponents and move with them and twist their momentum and force into something that will benefit him. So Matt's body almost starts to follow Foggy's lead, only he catches the exact instant that it's going to turn into flipping Foggy over his leg and onto his back, and in his haste to avoid grappling his unsuspecting roommate, Matt nearly gets pulled off his own feet.   
  
"Oh, dude - I mean, buddy. Sorry!" Foggy says, even as he tries to help keep Matt upright. Matt doesn't actually need help, but he leans into it anyway. "Okay, this might - this might be a little harder than I thought." He swallows, loud and wet, and his throat clicks a bit.   
  
"You think," Matt says, but he keeps his tone mild and humorous, because as long as Foggy thinks that the misstep was a blind thing, that's not disastrous. "Just - warn me when we're stepping."  
  
"Right, you can - ah. Shit. Okay." Foggy is almost audibly revising the situation, even as he guides Matt back into position and takes up his hand again. "Okay. I'm going to - we're just going to be stepping sideways and back, alright? That's like - the basis of every partner dance ever. So. Like. Follow my lead? And - three, two, one, step."   
  
Foggy telegraphs his step with an obvious dip and lead with his shoulders, and Matt finds himself edging on another laugh. Not because it's funny, it's just - he wants to. He wants to laugh. It feels natural. He doesn't, but he wants to.   
  
He follows a little awkwardly, bending his head a little bit. He can sense exactly where Foggy's feet are going, even though it should be Greek to a blind man, and he follows suit half a step behind. It all comes surprisingly natural to Foggy. He's weirdly light on his feet all of a sudden, and here is Matt, learning first hand just how real the phrase 'two left feet' is.   
  
"How can you be so bad at this," Foggy asks, somewhat ruefully. "I mean, I am totally going to work with this, we'll totally get this straightened out, but - you're so bad!"   
  
The laugh that's been bubbling in Matt's chest breaks out, shocked and self-deprecating. "You can't just tell the blind guy he's bad at dancing," he protests.   
  
"I can and I did, buddy," Foggy says. "Look, I'm just telling the truth!" He is, is the thing, not that Matt really needs to hear his heart to know it. "Come on, swing with me, Murdock - _swing_! Loosen up a bit." He reaches up and grabs Matt's shoulder, squeezing and shaking Matt.   
  
If Matt relaxes, he's going to dump Foggy on the floor, is the problem, he thinks. "Alright, alright," he says, and at least tries to ease his shoulder muscles a bit.   
  
"Alright," Foggy says. " _Feel_ the music! Move with it. You gotta live the rhythm, or you'll get laughed off the dance floor. This is the foundation we're building off of here."   
  
Matt hums, frowning a bit as he soaks those words in. It shouldn't be so difficult. He relaxes his stranglehold on his senses a bit, letting miscellaneous details seep in to color the vague, shadowy concept he has of the world.   
  
He builds from the foundations. This is their room. Foggy has shoved all the furniture up against the wall to clear the floor. There's crumbs on it, mostly on Foggy's side, stale chips and processed cheese and sugar and preservatives, syrup and the slightly bitter tang of carbonation. Foggy has his laptop on the desk, and the music mostly cracks and hisses, half because of the poor quality of the built-in speakers on his laptop, but equally because the music was recorded first to a record, and then finally made digital. It's brassy and bright and aggressive and playful, leaping and tumbling up and down the musical scale.   
  
And there's Foggy in front of him, smelling of their room and Matt and cologne and perfume from the party and vodka and whiskey and the soda he'd been drinking before dragging Matt back to their room. His heart is beating fast, and he's a little anxious, his voice squeezed through a tight throat. This is the source of Matt's problem, he thinks. Foggy's always confident moving through his space, but there's a kind of tumble and roll to the way he moves, a kind of clumsiness precipitated by general enthusiasm. Matt was expecting more of that, but - Foggy knows what he's doing here, and Matt doesn't.   
  
"It's just like breathing," Foggy is telling him. "I mean - don't measure your breathing by it, that'd be dumb, but. You know. Something you don't have to think about."   
  
"Th - that doesn't make any sense," Matt protests, even though he's not sure it doesn't. Still, he tries to follow Foggy's lead.   
  
He fails miserably, and at this point, Foggy starts laughing at him - as much as he ever laughs, a high, wheezing gasp, like his lungs seize up. "What _is_ that, Murdock?" he demands. "Okay, feel this: follow my feet."   
  
Foggy adjusts their stances, shifting in closer until his the tip of his foot is snug in with Matt's. They have to move carefully, slow, to avoid tripping over each other. The room isn't chilly, but Foggy ducks his head a bit and the heat that's coming off their bodies, through their clothes, and Foggy's breath quickly warm the space between them. It gathers and pools, and rolls over Matt like a hot bath.   
  
At that point, it's only too easy for his body to read Foggy's, to react accordingly and sync their movements from those two points of contact, their hands and their feet, and even the awkwardness of their feet can't hinder that much. It's suddenly too easy to feel the music, to dip and step with it in tandem with Foggy's more knowledgeable steps. It feels almost familiar, Matt thinks, his body moving without conscious thought, his heart pounding -   
  
The music hisses and crackles, and Foggy smells like the party and his shampoo and the warm, cozy scent that Matt falls asleep to. The room isn't cold, but they're a beacon of heat in the center of it, moving of one mind with hands clasped and arms halfway around one another. Foggy's heart drums in counterpoint to his own, and Matt finds that his lips and mouth are dry.   
  
A weird thought comes to him then, like the first time he'd gotten drunk, suffered the spins. Matt thinks for a sudden moment that he's going fly away - like the earth is going to fling him into space, or something. And he needs grounding, he needs something to remind himself that he's here in this room with someone and not in any danger of suddenly loosing his grip on the earth, and it doesn't seem like a big thing. He leans forward, just half an inch. It shouldn't be such a big deal. He presses his temple to Foggy's just for that additional point of contact, just for something to keep the ground and the sky in their appropriate places, and -   
  
Foggy's breath hitches, and his heart thumps loud and alarmed, and Matt realizes suddenly that they're not stepping so much as swaying, and then Foggy disengages, stepping back suddenly. Almost violently.   
  
"Well," Foggy says, and he'd sound calm except for his hammering heart, and Matt knows Foggy well enough to tell the difference between when Foggy is remembering something and when he's in retreat. Foggy is in retreat, heading for his laptop. "That's basically it," he says, "I didn't think you'd ever figure out those two left feet of yours, buddy, but you definitely - you have this!"   
  
He's trying to sound encouraging, but Matt feels vaguely cast adrift, smoothing his damp palm over his pants legs and wetting his lips. "You think so," he asks evenly.   
  
"Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean. There's a lot more to it, but just - put those moves to work on a girl, and they'll be falling over their own feet for it," Foggy says, shutting his laptop. His heart is still going fast, but there's no hitch of deception. He says it smooth and naturally, the tension simply stress, not a lie.   
  
Strangely, Matt doesn't feel assuaged by this. "Right," he says, "Um" and turns vaguely. Even without his keen spatial awareness, just from the location of the laptop, he'd be able to find his way back to the wall where his cane stands. "Thanks for this," he says. He wants to say 'sorry for getting weird on you', but ignoring the moments that Matt gets weird seems to be the front and center of their relationship, so. Matt follows the cues.   
  
"Yeah, no problem, anytime," Foggy says, but his heart says: lie.  
  
And so, smiling vaguely at him, Matt knows better than to ask.

 

\--

Karen, at least, has had too much to drink.   
  
She's working her own way through whatever it is that's troubling her. She won't explain it - "not yet," she says - but she smells like stale alcohol and tears less and less these days, so Matt holds his tongue and waits.   
  
But tonight - tonight is a night for celebrating. They started the night at Josie’s, but it's far past time to wrap it up, and now, as they head down the street toward Karen's apartment, she and Foggy are singing. Not show tunes - thankfully - but love songs, which isn't much better if he was honest. Karen seems to alternate between actually trying to sing and intentionally breaking her own voice, and Foggy. Well. It's a good thing Foggy has a day job.   
  
Matt is suffering, is what he's saying.   
  
Alright, that's a little dramatic. Matt isn't suffering all that much. If Matt was capable of being tortured by a few off-key singers, then he never would have made it through college, or a single night out on the town. Some people are actually, legitimately capable of drowning the sirens out. Foggy and Karen are nothing compared to that, and he has long since become immune to Foggy's singing, anyway.   
  
He still could have done without the duet rendition of "Dear Future Husband."   
  
"Good night, Matt," Karen says, after she's given Foggy her goodnights and kissed him on both cheeks. She clasps onto him and gives him a kiss on the cheek as well. "Thanks for coming out with us, even though you're sober."  
  
"And boring," Foggy chimes in helpfully.   
  
Karen bursts into merry little giggles, tucking her fact into Matt's collar for a second. "And boring!" she agrees loudly, bouncing slightly. "No, shh," she adds, pulling back and pretending sober. "You're not boring, Matt. Even though you are sober." She says 'sober' like it's a very unfortunate medical condition, and gives him a few dedicated pats on his chest. She seems to be concentrating very hard on it.   
  
"And you are very - very drunk," Matt informs her, untangling her fingers from his lapels. "Goodnight, Karen."   
  
"Goodnight, Matt," she tells him again, then rocks up on her toes to hiss at him urgently, "Make sure Foggy - Foggy gets home safely, Matt. Matt. He's very drunk. And sharks will get him."   
  
Matt pats her shoulder, trying for a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, I'll protect Foggy from the sharks."   
  
"Good," she tells him, and apparently has decided her business is done there, because she abruptly swings around and leaves.   
  
Foggy doesn't say anything to him when he makes the turn to head in the direction of his apartment building. It's like a splash of cold water to the face after the joviality of the night. Foggy's only tipsy - enough to loosen his tongue, to make him nearly as warm toward Matt as he used to be, but not enough to get him angry again.  
  
Matt says nothing, trailing a few feet behind Foggy, so that his cane won't tangle in Foggy's drink-softened shuffle.   
  
He can't be that angry, though, because just a block later, he starts humming again. It's nothing that Matt can place, as vast as his musical library is with his ears. It's certainly no pop song, which is what Matt usually ends up getting stuck in his head. It sounds vaguely like one of Foggy's theater songs, perhaps one of the villain's laments - the ones they do just before plunging into unfortunate behavior.   
  
Matt kind of regrets that he's that aware of theater. Granted, theater is something that he can get more from than a lot of shows or movies, since so much is conveyed through words and tone.   
  
"Soliloquy for our masked friend?" Matt ventures, uncertain how Foggy will respond.   
  
Foggy snorts. "I guess you could say that," he says dryly. "Not everything is about our masked friend, however."   
  
_Lie_ , his heart says, despite the fact that his tone is pointed, matter of fact. It stings Matt, a little bit. He thinks they could continue like this forever, and he would never stop feeling it.   
  
"No," Matt agrees. Not everything is. Daredevil didn't put this space between he and Foggy. That was something Matt did all on his own.   
  
After a moment, Foggy claps his hands together. "But," he says, "we are not worrying about that tonight, my friend. We are still celebrating out victory! Despite the fact that you are very, regrettably sober."   
  
"I am," Matt agrees. "I regretted it the most around the time you and Karen started singing Lady Gaga."  
  
"Oh come on," Foggy protests loudly. "'Bad Romance' is classic! - Okay, so maybe 'Bad Romance' isn't a classic, but it could be. It was fitting."   
  
"It was slighting scarring, is what it was," Matt protests with a laugh. "What was that -" He pauses, tucking his cane into his arm. He has a fair idea of what Karen and Foggy were doing, if only because alcohol makes them flare brightly in his senses.   
  
Whatever Matt does makes Foggy throw back his head and wheeze. "I need a camera," Foggy gasps. "Where's a camera? Oh. I missed that. Karen missed that! Karen needs to see that Matt. I need to record that and send it to Karen."   
  
"You're not recording me," Matt protests. Foggy knows he hates pictures and videos.   
  
"No, no, I really need to," Foggy says, still clutching at his stomach. "Ow. You're trying to kill me, Murdock."   
  
"No!"   
  
"Ah, maybe you're right," he says, calming down slightly. "If video proof of Matt Murdock doing the Gaga Monster Mash got out, I don't think our business would ever recover."   
  
"And video proof of you and Karen doing it wouldn't?"   
  
"No, but that's because Karen and I are charming, and also drunk," Foggy points you. "You do not have that excuse."   
  
Well, he can hardly argue with that. He is regrettably sober, as Foggy pointed out earlier. With their conversation having fallen by the wayside, and Foggy in better spirits, it doesn't take his friend long to start up with the tunes. Matt tilts his head, listening to the way Foggy's shoes scrape on the pavement.   
  
There are distant songs playing on radios, and sirens, and shouting and crashing and the echoing wail of the city, lap of water like tears. But here, immediately, there is Foggy humming, mouthing words that fall on Matt's ears like the softest patter of raindrops ( _"I asked the sun to tell the moon: the two of us are there -"_ ) his clothing rasping against itself and his shoes against the pavement.   
  
The cold thing in Matt's chest stirs again, to remind him that it exists, and he feels the few feet between them keenly. There are songs playing throughout the city, but the song that's closest to his heart is a love song. He wonders who it is that Foggy's singing it for.   
  
He wants to ask, but that would probably be weird of him.   
  
They arrive outside of Foggy's apartment, and Matt lingers for a second, thinking about walking Foggy all the way to his door. Would that be weird? It might be weird, but he's done it before. Foggy's done it for him, before. It couldn't be too weird. Foggy opens the door and holds it, and Matt doesn't need more of an invitation than that.   
  
Foggy groans as he finally hears the loud music that's being played. "I have got to get neighbors who don't play their music so loud," he laments. "It's not so bad right now, but when I'm hungover in the morning?"  
  
Matt's been hearing the music for the last block, and had half tuned it out. It's a love song, clear in tone and lyrics - although the words are lost on Foggy, in Spanish as they are. "That's what you get for Punjabi. It's not so bad," he says lightly. "It could be something worse. Could be dubstep?"   
  
"Ooh, dubstep," Foggy says. Matt can tell by the way he's cringing that he's grimacing, even though Foggy no longer tells him these things.   
  
Foggy can't even speak the language, but before they get to his door, he's trying to sing the song. He's - he's not doing a very good job, and Matt is trying very hard not to laugh, but he probably isn't succeeding. Something is breaking warm and bright in his chest, under the laugh he's trying to stifle. That old sense of tension that never quite faded is back, stretching and vibrating and threatening to snap. Usually, at this point, he'd reach out for Foggy - for a fistbump, of course, because there is no way to accidentally grasp and have to force himself to let go - but he's not sure that he's allowed.   
  
But being allowed is not something that always deters Matt. "Foggy," he says, swallowing his laughter, "Foggy, it's -" At that point, he gives up, because Foggy never manages to speak Spanish after he's been drinking, even if he's just a little tipsy - just a little, because otherwise it would be showtunes - "Never mind. Can I -"   
  
"Matt, shut up, I am singing from my soul, here, and souls - souls speak in tongues, you might not know -"   
  
"Souls do not speak in tongues, Foggy -"  
  
"They _could,_ what do you know, you're not the _real_ Devil."   
  
Matt huffs out his breath, and says, "Never mind that, Foggy, can I -" He can't lose his nerve, here - "Can I have this dance?" He holds out his hand, clutching his cane in his left.   
  
Foggy laughs out loud at him. "You look so serious," he wheezes. "No, no - okay. Okay, fine. What are you? Are you secretly a dancing genius? I should kick your ass." He grasps Matt's hand, tight against his palm, and Matt tries not to feel disappointed that their fingers can't thread.   
  
"No, I was - I actually can't dance," Matt says, his grin drying up on his face. He has no right to feel that way, but the thing in his chest is twanging, sharp and bright. He lied about a lot of things, but - not that. Nothing he didn't have to lie about. "People don't want to dance with the blind guy, Foggy. Girls don't want to lead."   
  
Foggy groans loudly, even as he pushes away from the hallway wall, stepping in close. He grasps Matt's shoulder, rather than the other way around. "Well, okay, I know perfectly well you're capable of leading," he says, dry and mocking, "So there. I will take one for the team, Murdock. I'll follow, you lead."   
  
"I - you never taught me how to lead," Matt protests. Their hands are getting a little moist, but Foggy sweats when he's been drinking, and - well. Matt probably smells a little sour, a little acrid.   
  
Foggy twists the cane out of Matt's hand and leans away to set it up against a wall. "Leading isn't hard, Matt," he says. "Just don't run me into any walls. That might be a little hard, this hallway's small, but I think someone of your unbelievable talents can probably avoid a few obstacles. Look. Here." He takes Matt's other hand and puts it at his waist, then settles his arm back over Matt's to hold onto his shoulder. "I'll start us, okay? Just. No walls. I don't need a concussion on top of a hangover at the office tomorrow. Karen might actually kill you."   
  
"She might," Matt agrees. "She's a little terrifying."   
  
Foggy moves naturally into the first step, not just a sideways step but also a pivot. Matt actually stumbles, not expecting it, and after about three more steps while Matt tries not to step on Foggy's feet, Foggy gives up. He's shaking with laughter, and he grasps Matt's jacket and leans into him.   
  
"You are _so bad_ at this, Matt! How are you so bad? I didn't teach you this," he gasps, dropping his forehead onto Matt's shoulder and giggling into his lapels.   
  
Matt groans in protest, listening to the love song playing down the hallway. Foggy's staggering, and he lifts his free arm to brace around Foggy's shoulders, trying to hold him upright. "Look, you can't blame me, blame the guy that taught me," he says mildly. "I haven't danced in years, anyway."   
  
"You should be embarrassed. You asked for this! I am embarrassed for you," Foggy says sincerely into his shoulder. He's radiating heat like a furnace, and there is something yawning and hungry dancing through Matt's skin, like the first time he'd touched silk, cool and the smoothest substance he'd ever felt.   
  
Matt's heart is pounding, and there's something in his chest, tight and quivering and shaking and bright. It hurts, but it hurts in a good way, and he doesn't want to let go. Foggy's fingers are tight, knotted into the back of his jacket and straining cloth, and his heart is beating fast and his breath is hot and his cologne has gone stale for all that it's slightly more fragnant now for his body heat and sweating. Down the hall, a woman is singing passionately that love makes you crazy, and beyond that, there are more songs - love songs, hate songs, break up songs, party songs - but Matt thinks about swing. He thinks of the brassy crackle of songs and crumbs in the carpet and the stale smell of their room at Columbia.   
  
"What were you singing earlier?" he asks.   
  
Foggy hums into his shoulder, then tenses. "Earlier? Oh. Who knows?" He releases Matt and pulls back. "Buddy, I am going to end up falling asleep out here, and that would just be embarrassing. That might be worse than you doing the Gaga Monster Mash." He digs through his pockets, searching for his keys. "You are now released from Foggy-guarding duty, officially, even. If Karen asks, you can say you protected me from all the sharks. You know what would suck? Jaws in the Hudson."   
  
"I don't think Jaws would come in the Hudson," Matt says wryly.   
  
"What are you? A shark-ologist? Go home, Matt, you're drunk," Foggy says.   
  
"I'm not drunk! _You're_ drunk."   
  
Foggy makes an airy, sweeping gesture, achingly familiar. "Ah! But I am home, and you are not. See you tomorrow, Murdock."   
  
But he doesn't duck into his apartment immediately, and Matt can't quite step away. He wants to reach out and touch Foggy again - his limbs ache with it, like his fingers do just before he drives them into flesh and crackling bone - but he can't think of another excuse. The moment lingers - stretches - breaks. Foggy nods, and steps into his apartment, and closes the door behind him, and that familiar feeling of being cast adrift comes back to Matt then.   
  
After a minute, he turns to retrieve his cane from the wall, to make his way back to his own home. He likely won't stay home, but he clearly can't stay here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually started to write more, and have plans to turn this into "Five times Matt Failed at Dancing + 1 time He Got It Right" - but I also have a dozen projects on my plate, so who knows when/if that'll happen. 
> 
> Foggy had them dancing to [Sammy Davis Jr](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1mX2qib9mY). Later, he sings [Caro Emerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK6mIshCuYU).


	4. Soulmate AU, M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want mattfoggy soulmate trope where MATT is the one that knows they’re soulmates because Foggy can’t tell (for whatever reason, depending on which soulmate trope u go with). 
> 
> Like some have (intangible) red strings, some do the color-vision thing, some have soulmarks, some hear their sm’s voice in their head, some have first-meeting words, some have names, etc
> 
> #that's kind of interesting actually #a world where not only do you have a soulmate #but you and your soulmate also have a method of meeting that suits you best
> 
> [tumblr x-post](http://justavengeit.tumblr.com/post/128759418453/injoketaken-justavengeit-i-want-mattfoggy)

* * *

 

**a look, and a voice ([x](http://justavengeit.tumblr.com/post/128783950413/a-look-and-a-voice))**

 

When Foggy is thirteen, he doesn’t get a voice. He gets a heartbeat.

Which is weird, isn’t it? Sometimes Ways got strange when they wouldn’t work for you or your soulmate, but the Nelson’s Way has been voices for just about as long as anyone can remember. Not Foggy, though. There’s no friendly voice talking to him, using his soulmate’s words to console and coax and encourage him.

He’s just got a lub-dub in his ears like his heart has doubled. It’s not a happy heart, either. It races and jumps and rabbits and pounds. Maybe his soulmate is mute, he thinks. Maybe they’re an athlete?

Foggy’s not really all that athletic himself, but he doesn’t think all of frantic activity is because his soulmates running around catching balls or running or swimming or anything. Foggy’s a happy kid, generally speaking - as happy as teenagers are at any given time, anyway. He thinks the dull throb of it is angry, he thinks it races with fear, he thinks it slows and beats so tiredly because the person it belongs to is sad - that maybe they’re lonely.

Foggy taps its rhythm out against his chest, against the long flat bone where his ribs meet, and tries to coax his own heart to follow its pace so they won’t be sad anymore. They’ve gotta know he’s out here, right? He wants them to know he’s out here, that he’s listening, that he hears them and they’re not alone, they never will be.

Sometimes, it kind of works - sometimes that lub-dub speeds just a tad to match the beating of his own.

When Foggy’s fifteen, for the first time he realizes just how impossible it’s going to be to find them. Voices are one thing - people talk, sooner or later, unless they physically can’t. But a heart? He can’t go around listening to people’s hearts.

He thinks about becoming a cardiologist. It makes the most sense, right? He’ll become a doctor - a heart doctor - because if his Way is a heartbeat, then that’s the most likely way to find them, right? It’s his Way, so this has got to be it.

He looks into it - watches films and reads books and googles and memorizes wikipedia pages. His soulmate’s heart hops and skips in his ears, inside his head, races and pounds and flutters - it’s a good, strong heart, Foggy thinks. Healthy.

It’s not on purpose, Foggy thinks. Cardiology is a science. Still, the information is there, and when he puts it together, he finds out he’s listening to things that are supposed to be private.

At seventeen, Foggy decides he’s going to become a lawyer. There’s no point in revolving his life around someone if they’re not revolving back.

–

Foggy should have given more consideration to the fact that his gravity is pretty strong, but he’s more of a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. His life ends up revolving around Matthew Murdock, but whatever. It’s only too clear that Matt’s not revolving back. It’s a bit of a planet-ending discovery that proves that not only is Matt not revolving back, but his rotational force is about equivalent to Foggy’s orbit and there’s a whole fucking dark side of the moon that hadn’t been seen there.

Wait, this metaphor is getting away with him.

Goddamn, he’s so fucking tired. Better him than Claire, he gets that - Claire’s a nurse and the hospital runs her shifts in double digits, and Claire can kill a lot more people on accident if she’s sleep deprived than Foggy can. If he ruins someone’s life, they’ll survive, but they probably won’t use Nelson and Murdock, Advocates at Law again. Lawyers getting sued. Thankfully, he’s pretty sure he can depend on Matt to take the case pro bono, considering Matt will be the cause of it.

So he’s got a blitzed-out superhero vigilante on his couch. No big deal. He’s already gone through Claire’s checklist, and Matt’s blood pressure is fine, his breathing is fine, they’ve washed out the dust from Matt’s hair and skin, they’ll probably have to burn half the Daredevil suit and Foggy’ll have to resist the urge to burn the whole thing, but Matt just mostly has to suffer through the disorientation of being high.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Matt warns him from his huddled, miserable ball at the end of the couch.

“Uh huh,” Foggy says, more patiently than he feels. Matt’s been telling him he’s going to throw up since he showed up, and it’s been three hours now and he still hasn’t, so Foggy figures this is more just an expression of how awful the whole experience is.

Matt moans, low and pathetic, and tries to hold his head still against the back of the couch. He’s like the saddest abandoned puppy ever, swimming in one of Foggy’s largest hoodies - Matt’s choice. Foggy wouldn’t have offered a hoodie to Matt, it’s almost ninety outside at midnight these days, but while Foggy had been distracted with trying to get the Daredevil suit contained in a way that wouldn’t get that shit on either one of them, Matt had wandered out of the bathroom and went pawing through his closet and dressed himself that way. Maybe it’s just the softest thing in there, who knows.  

It’s like the Great Flu Debacle of Second Year all over again. Foggy had just gotten the sniffles, because he’s strong as a horse and actually gets his vaccinations, but most of the campus had come down sick, and Matt had gotten the worst of the symptoms. He rarely gets sick, as far as Foggy can tell, but when he does, it really kicks his ass.

Must be the super senses, now that Foggy thinks about it.

He’s pretty tired and tomorrow is going to suck for the both of them, even though he’s not going to let Matt come into the office, even if he tries. Foggy gets up from the coffee table and gets a hand towel from the kitchen and gets it wet in the sink. He’s not sure how Matt’s not burning up, but he’s pretty sure that’s not a good thing.

“Here you go, Matty,” he says, laying the towel around the back of Matt’s neck - well, as best as he can with the way Matt’s turned himself into a human pretzel. Matt startles and makes a tortured sound, but his hand lets go of his head and his arm unfolds a bit and Foggy’s expecting him to either hold onto the wet, cool towel or fling it off, but instead his fingers wrap around his wrist. “Uh,” Foggy says.

“Please,” Matt says, and peers up in his general direction with his eyes wide and his brows arched and his mouth turned down like he’s Oliver Fucking Twist.

“You’re a grown-ass man, Matt,” Foggy informs him irritably, and looks searchingly at the ceiling, because he doesn’t look up very often and maybe that’s where either his self-respect or Matt’s is hiding. It’s nowhere to be found, so when Matt’s hand loosens on Foggy’s wrists, he twists his fingers around to catch it. “Okay,” he says, looking down, “what do you need, Matty?”

Fuck, there goes his voices doing that stupid thing he tries not to let it - the one where it’s all soft and tender. Well, he’s probably fucked anyway, if Matt’s been listening to his heart from day one - Matt probably has him all figured out, backwards and forwards and upside down - but he still tries to have some self-respect or to respect the fact that Matt hasn’t made fun of him for it, or even tried to use it against him at all.

Falling in love with people who aren’t his soulmate. At least he and that other fucker, whoever they are, have that much in common.

Matt tugs on his arm, and it takes Foggy a second to realize what Matt means by it.

“Ah. Well. I guess you are high,” Foggy mutters pragmatically. They’d discovered the hard way that as independent and untouchable as Matt usually is, getting drunk or getting high really brings out the cuddle monster in him. Matt will just have to be mad about it in the morning, Foggy thinks, because it will take a man of more fortitude than him to resist Matt’s pathetic expression. He settles down on the couch beside Matt.

Matt immediately makes like the biggest dog that doesn’t realize it isn’t a lapdog, curling into Foggy’s side and shoving his head under Foggy’s chin. He’s swimming in Foggy’s hoodie and it’s probably ninety degrees outside and Foggy’s central air unit only barely makes it a tolerable seventy degrees inside his home, but Matt’s shivering.

Fuck Foggy’s life, he thinks, as he’s been thinking for more than ten years now. He rearranges the wet towel on the back of Matt’s neck and the hood around it so it doesn’t drip everywhere.

It takes him a moment to notice that Matt’s tapping his fingers against Foggy’s side - not against his ribs, he’s a bit too cuddly for that, and it’s featherlight. It’s a rather steady, rhythmic pattern that Matt has going on there, and -

Oh.

If Foggy hadn’t been in the habit himself, all those years ago, he probably never would have figured it out. Matt’s tapping out his heartbeat, like the creep he is, being able to hear it even when he’s not pressed against Foggy’s chest the way he is right now.

All it does is make Foggy suddenly hear his Way. He’s gotten pretty good at ignoring it over the years, until it’s about as unobtrusive as his own, but right now it’s like when someone tells you not to think. His soulmate’s heart is pattering along, fluttery and fast - not panic, Foggy thinks, but not exertion, either. Maybe they’re reacting to the way Foggy’s own heart had thumped hard against his chest and began to race.

Maybe not, and who cares about them anyway? Not Foggy. Foggy doesn’t need some weird unrequited connection with another human being, he’s already got some weird quasi-requited connection with his idiot best friend.

He reaches down and traps Matt’s hand so it can’t tap anymore. “Hey,” he says, “try to get some sleep, okay?”

Matt stills a bit, and Foggy can’t see his face, but he knows Matt like the back of his hand, so he doesn’t need to see it to know that Matt’s making one of his sad faces. “Sure, Fog,” he says, lying so blatantly that it distracts Foggy from how his Way skips and jumps in his ears.

Someone ought to be happy, Foggy thinks. Too bad that someone’s just not either of them.

–

The subject of soulmates only came up once, between them. Still young, still idealistic, their first year of school.

They’d only known each other for a month when Foggy had said: “So, okay, feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but I gotta ask - what’s your Way?”

“Oh,” Matt had said, “Uh.” And he’d licked his lips. “Um. Murdocks usually have the red thread.”

“Dude,” Foggy had said, a little stunned. “Yeah? Wow. That really sucks.”

“Yeah, a bit,” Matt said. “I lost my sight before I could see it, but. Um. You know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Foggy said, “Nelson’s usually get a voice.”

“Oh. So you -?”

“Never got one,” he’d said quickly, and shrugged, and added: “I just shrugged. It’s fine. Who needs a soulmate anyway, right?”

Matt had smiled thinly, and he’d looked a little pale and unhappy, and said “yeah” but Foggy had thought that maybe he’d wanted one, wanted to meet his. He hadn’t known how to backpedal from that, though, and so he’d said nothing at all.

One day, Foggy thinks, some pretty boy or girl was going to walk up to Matthew Murdock and tell him that their string led them straight to him. It hasn’t happened yet, not in all these years, but it’s going to, sooner or later, and it’s going to hurt like hell.

–

 

****(rivers overflowing)** the voice of rage and ruin ([x](http://justavengeit.tumblr.com/post/132029755663/rivers-overflowing-the-voice-of-rage-and-ruin))  
**

 

* * *

There’s a heart that beats inside Matt’s chest. Well, there are two hearts, but one of them he can forget, one of them he can ignore; one of them fades to nothingness unless there is sweat breaking out on his skin and air knifing through his throat and his muscles burning and then he feels it, then he hears it, and his veins thunder with its pulses. It’s a heart he can ignore.

The other heart, he can not. 

It’s a heart that lives inside his chest, although it isn’t actually there, and he can’t do anything with it. It’s more-than-heard, quick and shallow and steadier than Matt’s own hand. He hears it, too, of course - a quiet whoosh-and-thump. But he mostly feels it, a gentle pulse that races through his body like the ebb and flow of his own blood, the slight variances in pressure as his own heart pushes and sucks, pushes and sucks.

It’s been his steady friend for years now, and sometimes he clasps his hands to pray, and sometimes he clasps his hands over his ribs and imagines that he can curl his hands around the heart that beats inside his chest, and hold it secret, and hold it safe. It’s his one and only comfort, though he’s not sure he should let himself rely on it so much - relying on people made them leave. And it’s true that this heart can’t leave him (as much a part of him as his own), but other impossible things have happened to Matt, and he’s not sure he wants to chance it.

–

At first it’s because he doesn’t know how to admit it. He wants to. It’s one thing to feel the pulse of it in his chest, but to have that accompanied by the sound of the real thing is -

It’s a bit overwhelming. It pulls his tight jaw loose. It makes something hungry settle into his bones, so that his arms twitch strangely and his fingers itch. He wants to feel it against his teeth the same as he feels it through the marrow of his bones, in the ends of every nerve.

At first, he says nothing because he’s not sure what shape the words should take, and then - then it’s equally because he’s not sure how those words would be received, and then it’s -

Then it’s just easier not to say anything. An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by an outside force, and the words sit at the back of Matt’s tongue and stagnate there, and wear grooves there, and do not budge.

Foggy wishes and washes between the fiction of not having a soulmate and hating ‘the fucker’ depending on how many drinks he’s had, and his heart beats heavy and resentful in Matt’s chest for a few beats then lightens and patters, happy and cheerful, and Matt knows that he’s smiling; doesn’t need to hear the wet sound of lips parting to know there’s a grin there. Foggy’s not who Matt imagined was on the other side of that steady and sunny beat, but now that Matt knows him, he can’t imagine that it would be anyone else.

Many times, when Matt was younger, he’d feel the heart in his chest change its beat like it was trying to match the flow of his blood. Since meeting Foggy, Matt only too often feels the tide of pulsing blood wax and wane as that heart determines.

But the secrets in his mouth, at the back of his tongue, clog his throat and choke back other more desperate truths, and Matt still says nothing. He doesn’t know how to overcome inertia. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.

–

Foggy is his inertia, though. Matt’s blood sucks and pushes, pushes and sucks, a vital tide under a sanguine moon.

That moon grows large, and dark, and heavy. It turns choleric, and bitter. Foggy says “You can hear a heartbeat across the room?” and Matt thinks that every secret he’s ever had has been pulled from him, like his own heart is being pried up out of his chest through the bones of his ribs, like it’s pulling his veins with it, like things are tearing in him, ragged and raw.

It feels like that, like Matt can’t breathe for the things being ripped out of him by beloved hands, like the blood is pooling in his lungs again for no where else to be, heavy and still. Heavy and still.

A dead, salty sea, like molten metal and rot.

And when Foggy leaves, he takes Matt’s other heart with him, as well.

–

Matt is a thing made of flesh and bones and a dead sea beneath a blackened, angry moon. He is rot and he is salt and he is something choked and angry at the back of his tongue that makes it hard to breathe and makes his teeth feel sharp. There is something dark and heavy and angry that pulses behind his eyes, that makes those dull, useless orbs throb. Matt imagines pulling them from his skull. He thinks of shattering his glasses and sticking the shards in. He’d barely notice, he thinks. Would it even hurt? Would it?

Would it hurt more than he already does, he wonders, and thinks maybe he’ll try if only because he is in motion and there is no force allowing him to come to a stop.

(Karen, soft and sharp and tasting of bitter-salt-tears and the harsh, acrid bite of alcohol, tries. Tries to hold all his sharp pieces together, tries to make a bandage of herself, but Matt is something dead and rotting and beyond help -)

–

Slowly, a sliver of white light emerges around the curve of the moon, and the dark phase passes - passes, and fades. Matt’s dull and dry and dusty lungs let fresh air in. The dead, salty sea seeps from them and becomes rivers and channels again.

Foggy gives back first his own heart so that it pulses, heavy and uncertain, through Matt’s bones and in his aching fists. Then, carefully, he sews Matt’s  back into his ruined chest with a needle sharp with fear and thread heavy and stiff with resentment. For days, and days thereafter, it feels twitchy and ill-fitting and unused, and then slowly warms and feels like Matt’s own heart again.

–

Matt is in motion and the moon is bright in the sky, heavy and luminous and pulling the salty iron tide with it. Matt is in motion, and looking for his outside force, and so when Foggy says “I am not looking forward to asking Brett for yet another favor,” Matt says, “That’s a lie.”

“Buddy,” Foggy says, “We’ve had a talk about your invasive heart-listening thing.”

“It’s not, though,” Matt says, and “It’s not invasive when it’s you.”

Foggy’s irritation tastes like iron and salt on something vital, shallow and grumpy, like a thin, crackling candy shell of something puckeringly sour over something soft and oozing and sweet. “Yeah, how so?” he demands, and Matt’s mouth waters from the bite of it and he licks his lips.

“It’s not anything you can’t do,” he says, and the angry-happy patter of the heart in Matt’s chest begins to pound.

–

The sanguine moon rises, and takes hold of Matt, and he is (at last) still.

–

 


	5. Surprise Kiss, M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy is fresh from a nasty divorce and staying with Matt until his living arrangements (and his heart) is sorted out. He ends up taking his new husbanding habits out on Matt.   
> [tumblr x-post: knotted ties](http://justavengeit.tumblr.com/post/128926073148/knotted-ties)

* * *

 

“So,” Karen drawls leadingly, probably smiling as much as she sounds like she is, “how is the married life?”

Matt sputters a bit, his face twisting into an awkward grin. “We’re not married, Karen,” he objects. “Look, Foggy’s just staying with me until he can find another apartment.”

“Uh huh,” she says, gently beating his arm with the bag of freshly fried donut holes she’d picked out. Matt had tried to dissuade her – they’re cheap, maybe, but Matt’s going to end up smelling them for days - but she had ignored both him and the bagels and buns that he’d picked out. Granted, they did smell good right now, and the office would smell sweet and toasty for the next few hours before the hot oil would linger, stale and invasive. “Matt,” she says, “it’s been three months. You two are wearing matching ties with matching tie clips. Are you letting him pick out your clothes?”

He was, actually, although maybe he should stop. Logically speaking, this was one of his summer suits, knit together in a way meant to breathe, but he was feeling a little warm under the collar. But really, letting Foggy pick his suits made sense - Foggy knew what looked good on Matt, and strangers seemed to agree if their hitching breaths and swallowing was any indication.

“That doesn’t make us married,” he says, finally mastering his face and reigning it back to neutral. “I’m pretty sure we would have to be romantically involved - which we’re not.”

“Yeah, you’re something,” Karen says, amused. “Also, don’t be so closed minded! You don’t have to be romantically involved to get married! There are tons of other, perfectly good reasons to get married. Although between me, you, and Foggy - I think there’s a little something.”

Matt sighs loudly, giving up on the argument. When Karen gets something into her head, it’s pretty much impossible to convince her otherwise. She’s worse than most blood-hounds on the hunt, he thinks.

Anyway, she just doesn’t have the right context for he and Foggy. She met them while Foggy and Matt had still been trying to settle into their new office, and they were both scrambling for work, and Matt had his secret life that he was – well. Keeping secret. She doesn’t know how they used to be in college, how close they used to be.

Or maybe, thinking back on it, it was better that she didn’t. At least two of their study-group’s members had broached the idea that Foggy and Matt should just get married so they could shoulder their debts together, like that would have simplified their life or something. And that was just to Matt; who knows what they said to Foggy, Matt wasn’t always in hearing distance to know.

Of course, that had been during the time that all the students had been frantically exploiting loopholes, high on their ability to actually read and understand laws. He’s pretty sure, anyway.

“Anyway,” Matt adds belatedly, “Foggy just got out of a relationship that went too far, too fast. So let’s keep the married jokes between you and me.”

Karen makes a noise of protest into her cup. She swallows and says, “Duh, Matt. Though that really surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought Foggy would have been the one to rush into a relationship like that and have it blow up in his face.”

Matt can’t help the way he rears back a little with indignation, or the little stifled scoff he makes. She’s not entirely wrong, though, he acknowledges with a bitter twist of his mouth. Claire had accused him of grabbing too much, too fast, months and months ago after he tried to tell her he was going to be good, now. Better.

Foggy’s actions had been shocking to him, too. He could usually depend on Foggy to be reasonable and level-headed, at least as long as his stress was at a manageable level. Matt had checked again and again, but Katilyn had seemed like just a normal woman, innocent of questionable connections and intentions - if a little impulsive. Okay, a lot impulsive. He can’t fault her taste in husbands, though.

He shoves his misgivings aside as they arrive back at the office, ducking inside when Karen holds the door for him. It’s only fair - he has a box of baked goods in one hand and Foggy’s coffee clutched in his elbow, his own in his hand.

“Well,” Foggy greets them, “Hail to the conquering heroes! Oh, no, are those donut holes? Tell me those are donut holes.”

“These are donut holes,” Karen says with satisfaction, “freshly cooked, shaken with cinnamon and sugar.”

Foggy groans loudly, appeased. “Have I told you that you’re my favorite? Because you are seriously my favorite.”

“Mm hmm.” Karen hands the bag over to Foggy, then takes the box of bagels out of Matt’s hand. Great, now Foggy’s going to fill up on donut holes and probably absolutely no bagels. Between the amount of sugar that’s on them and the syrups in the coffee that Matt picked out, Foggy’s probably going to get sick from the sugar. Matt’s not going to be the one to fetch him milk or rub his stomach; he’s not Foggy’s mother.

(Who does Matt think he’s kidding, he’s probably going to be exactly that person, and Karen is going to laugh herself sick. Maybe he can send her out for the milk and she won’t be there to see it, he thinks hopefully.)

Not everyone can survive on whole-wheat and sprouted grain, he reminds himself sourly. Though he can’t honestly remember when was the last time he could afford those kinds of luxuries. Both he and Foggy have been living off cheap and easy food recently, partially because that had been their habit back in college and partially because Matt had forgotten how satisfying salt and grease were. At least, initially. He always felt like shit later.

“Here,” he adds, retrieving the hot cup from his elbow and holding it out. No point in keeping it from Foggy.

“And my favorite coffee. I think I’m getting spoiled - or buttered up. Are you buttering me up?” Foggy asks, taking the cup.   
  
“I am not buttering you up,” Matt says tolerantly, listening to him tuck the bag of donut holes into his elbow so he can pop the lip on the plastic lid. “If I were buttering you up, I’d probably appeal to your endlessly kind nature, and vanity.”   
  
“I am vain, and also very generous,” Foggy allows, then takes a sip of his drink. He makes a startled noise of appreciation. “Are you sure you’re not buttering me up? This is fresh, even I can taste that.”  
  
Matt laughs; apparently he should do more nice things for Foggy, if getting him fresh coffee makes him think he’s being bribed or flattered. “I’m really not. Or maybe I am - I had to embarrass Karen a little bit to convince them to put a new pot out, so I don’t think she’s going to take me along anymore. But, hey, only the best for my best, right?” He smirks a bit, teasingly, and Foggy makes an amused sound.

“Hey,” Karen calls from the kitchenette, “where did the butter go? Are we out?”

“Uh huh,” Foggy says to Matt. He’s already distracted by Karen’s question, his hair sliding over his collar as he looks toward the kitchenette, but he doesn’t forget Matt just yet. He says “Thanks, babe,” and ducks forward, bracing the back of his wrist against Matt’s elbow as he presses his mouth to Matt’s cheek.

Matt’s glad that in the next second, Foggy’s walking off to the kitchenette, saying, “Well, it should be in the back, top shelf,” because he nearly drops his coffee all over himself and the floor and everything else. He’s not sure how he manages to catch it before it spills. His collar is too tight and hot. His ears are burning.

He stands frozen in the hallway, clutching his coffee in a grip that verges on too tight, the plastic lid squeaking as it rubs against Styrofoam. His heart is thumping fast in his chest, almost too fast, like he’s been running across rooftops, leaping heedlessly into the dark. It’s not the first time, he thinks, so he’s not sure why it’s so shocking. Foggy used to kiss him all the time in college, leaving cool prints of alcohol on his cheeks that evaporated and itched.

It doesn’t feel cool in the least, Matt thinks, reaching up to scrub the slightly wet spot away.  It feels hot, like a brand of some kind, like he’s been marked. Coffee, he reminds himself. Fresh coffee, and piping hot. Of course. That’s why.

Only, thank goodness that Karen hadn’t seen that. He’d probably never live it down. Matt lifts his own coffee, and takes a long drink, until it seems reasonable that the warmth burning through his skin is just due to his body dissipating the foreign heat at his core.

The married life, he reflects wryly. It kind of sucks.

 


	6. Time Traveler!Foggy; m/f

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy travels back in time to stop the Kingpin's right hand man, one Matthew Murdock (#Matt Murderdock). That's - that's not quite what happens when he meets the man at Columbia. Prompted on the Kinkmeme [here](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/6237.html?thread=11055453#cmt11055453%22)

* * *

  **Nelson VS Murdock (the Time Traveler's remix)**

* * *

 

 

Foggy looks at Matt, broken and pale and bloodied on the couch, and he demands to know: "Did you set off those bombs, Matt? Did you shoot that cop?" and Matt reels. He is all dismay and disbelief when he says, "Do you really have to ask that?"  
  
But the thing is, Foggy _does_.

\--

No one ever asked Foggy Nelson if he wanted to go back in time on a mission to assassinate Hitler - Foggy is even aware of the whole time traveler's dilemma: one traveler goes back to assassinate Hitler, another goes back to stop him, so on and so forth.  
  
No one plans on sending Foggy Nelson back into the past, but Foggy gets a little tired of being lead around by the nose. He's tired of superheros. They seem to keep fucking things up, making things worst. Maybe that's unfair. They like working with him, they say he's pragmatic, they say he's got a good head on his shoulders. They try to protect him from the Kingpin - most importantly, they try to protect him from the Kingpin's right hand man. The one that rules the empire with an iron fist in a bloodied silk glove.  
  
It's just that Foggy gets tired of being treated like he barely has a mind or a will of his own sometimes. He gets tired of reacting. He wants to _act_ , to strike first.  
  
When a strange guy who wears a fucking cape gets distracted by some kind of argument that Foggy isn't invited to because 'the less you know, the better' and leaves his weird space-time bendy-wobbly bullshit device unattended - well. Foggy acts.

 

\--

  
  
It's a little bit disgusting to listen to Matt cut himself open and pull apart his ribs with a soft wet crack, like gutting himself and showing Foggy his heart is going to fix any of this. Isn't that Foggy's fault, though? He's the one that has accused Matt, so he stands accused, and so he must prove himself innocent -  
  
"Jesus, Matt," Foggy says, because it's too much, he can't handle it himself, God no, please. "Why, huh? Couldn't you just have - isn't being a lawyer enough?"  
  
And Matt, his broken heart all over his stupid face, says, "No." He shakes his head like he's waking up from a bad dream, or a dog with water in it's ear. "It's not enough. The law isn't enough - the system isn't enough. I - I get proof - Foggy, please," he says. "But it's not admissible, it's not -" His broken heart is all over his face, and something like panic, but the asshole apparently hears heartbeats and smells fear or something, so Foggy's not surprised, because he thinks: _This is it. This is how Murdering Murdock is born: the day Matt takes the law into his own hands._  
  
He thinks: _I have to kill this man._  
  
Matt must smell it or something, sprawled out helpless and broken on his couch, pale and cold and smeared with blood, because he looks up at Foggy and his blind eyes are huge and dark and pleading.

 

\--

  
  
No one sends Foggy Nelson back into the past to kill Hitler. Foggy sends himself on a personal mission to put a stop to Hell's Kitchen (and Manhattan, and all of New York City) from falling into Kingpin's hands. It just so happens that it's going to require him killing a man.  
  
Only, Foggy's not a cold blooded killer. It's one of the things that sets him apart from Matthew Murdering Murdock. Well, actually there are a lot of things that set him far apart from that psychopath - Hell, calling Murdering Murdock a psychopath is a slight against psychopaths everywhere. Psychopaths are at least sick - there's something measurable wrong with their hearts or their heads.  
  
No, Murdering Murdock isn't sick - he's too intelligent, too cool, too concise. There's just something in his soul that's broken, something that went missing that makes him completely amoral. He knows what's right and what's wrong and it just doesn't matter to him anymore.  
  
Killing him wouldn't be like killing a man - it'd be a lot more like putting a rabid dog down -  
  
wouldn't it?

 

\--

  
  
Foggy doesn't kill Matt. Foggy helps Matt get dressed, and he follows Claire's instructions and gets Matt some water, and then he goes to the window to take a good look at his life and his choices.

 

\--

  
  
Foggy's only seventeen when he wakes up in the past. Literally wakes up. God. Being seventeen is the worst. It's far from the worst years of his life - that's tied between fourteen when Foggy first realized Brett's older brother was kind of hot, oh shit, and thirty, when he realizes that Matt Murdering Murdock was kind of hot, oh shit. Still, seventeen isn't winning any competitions for Foggy's favorite years.  
  
He's too young to buy a gun, first of all, unless he wants to go to the black market, which he doesn't, thanks. Foggy probably couldn't afford the black market prices, anyway, and this time travel bullshit is apparently all one-way so he'll have to face consequences for his actions.  
  
It's about that time that Foggy starts actually thinking about murdering Matt Murdering Murdock, and he realizes that he's really not cut out for that kind of stuff. Which is dereliction of duty, isn't it? Jesus. He could possibly kill a guy with - maybe - a baseball bat, in the heat of the moment, but he's not stupid. If he and Matt Murdock get into a fight, he knows who is going to win. So.  
  
So when it comes time to apply to colleges, Foggy remembers suddenly that Matt Murdock graduates from Columbia School of Law. And well - Foggy can do that, too.

 

\--

  
  
"You want to say something," Matt says, when he really should be sleeping his massive amounts of injuries and maybe-concussion off.  
  
"I wanna say a lot of things, Murdock," Foggy says. "It's better if I don't."  
  
But Matt's a glutton for punishment, and it's honestly astonishing that New York can even handle having both Matt's ego and Stark's on the same side of the world. He says, "Go ahead and say it."  
  
Two decades of worries and fears churn in Foggy's gut, and roil and bubble and surge inside his throat, demanding to be let out.

 

\--

  
  
Foggy goes to Columbia, and then Matt Murdering Murdock wanders into room three-twelve with an uncomfortable smile.  
  
Only because Foggy's actually thirty-three and a DA on top of that, and one of the few normal people besides Pepper Goddamned Potts that knows most of the superheros' secret identities stops him from blurting out: oh God, you're my roommate.  
  
Instead, Foggy looks at Murdock, and he's just a fucking _kid_ , really, young and fresh faced and nervous; he's gangly, and a little bit awkward, in fucking _jeans_ and an oversized sweater. The shape of the man he'll grown into is there but not yet realized - like clayworks shaped on a wheel and set out to dry, so the final shape is there but no one's put it into the kiln yet. Unfinished.  
  
So Foggy doesn't say _oh God_ , Foggy says: "Okay, that's criminal, you're under arrest," and he manages to stop himself from finishing that with 'for being too cute.'  
  
Murdock jerks his head back like an alarmed dog, and he says, "What."  
  
Foggy dies a little bit inside, because who is he even if he fucking hits on Matt Murdering Murdock, even if he _is_ stupidly adorable as a teenager, Jesus. Also teenager: thanks, Gramps, you're gross. "Nothing, sorry," he says quickly, panicking a bit, because oh, God, Murdering Murdock is going to be his roommate, Foggy's not going to make it, Murdock's going to fucking kill him in his sleep."Bad joke, don't mind me. You're my roommate?"  
  
Murdock frowns, one brow quirked up in disbelief and utter confusion. "Um," he says, which what, because Foggy's never heard him stutter or stumble or 'um' or 'er.' He reaches out with his cane to locate the second bed in the room and slings his bag down on top of it. "Yeah," he says, and straightens, and then his shoulders go up and his jaw tightens. "Is that going to be a problem?"  
  
"No, no problem," Foggy lies with a smile that Murdering Murdock can't even see, but oh God, he's totally going to get killed in his sleep.

 

\--

  
  
"You don't get it," Foggy says, "I am literally scared out of my mind for you! You run around like an idiot in thin cloth with no fucking armor on, beating the shit out of people in back alleys? Who the fuck even does that? Not the good guys, let me tell you that!"  
  
"No, I have to do this, Foggy," Matt says, Matt _pleads_ with him, "The City needs me! Fisk has his people _everywhere_ , you can't fight it through the legal channels, not anymore - maybe not ever."  
  
"Oh, don't talk to me about fighting the insidious infection of Fisk!" It comes out at a shout, and Matt's head goes up and down and his jaw clenches and his eyes blink rapidly, like he's going to burst into tears of all things, and what the fuck is any of this? Foggy takes a deep breath, and has to step away from the couch, pacing over the fucking mess of broken furniture on the floor.  
  
Matt says nothing, doesn't ask for clarification, or question him, or anything, but he doesn't _get it_. Foggy wonders if in the future, Matt had gone into Fisk's operation to try to take it down from the inside, but if that's true then apparently even blind men can stare too long into the abyss.  
  
"You don't get it," he says again, because this is the sticking point for Foggy. "Goddamn it, Matt. Do not fucking fight monsters, or look into the Abyss - do you know what will become of you if you do this shit? You can't, Matt - you _can't._ "  
  
Matt lifts his head, tracking Foggy by his footsteps, and says, "I don't, then who will?"

 

\--

  
  
So not only does Matt Murdering Murdock _not_ kill Foggy Nelson in his sleep, he actually kind of saves the day? It's not really anything big; Murdock seems uncomfortable around Foggy and often finds plenty of excuses to be as far from Foggy as possible as often as possible. And Foggy -  
  
Look, okay, he's already been in the past for almost a year now. Seventeen wasn't his favorite age, and it's not his least favorite, but still. People are assholes. They're less of assholes as adults, and mostly because Foggy became the fucking DA, so they had kind of been forced to be polite and play nice.  
  
But yeah. This is college, and Foggy's - well. Foggy's Foggy. He has less patience for it now than he did as an actual eighteen year old, but it also hurts less; assholes in classes and out of them make fun of him, and he rolls his eyes and plans vaguely for when he's a DA.  
  
Also some of them, he's going to have dirt on if they make the same bad choices they did before, and why wouldn't they? So fuck 'em.  
  
See, the thing is, Matt Murdock has less patience for people than Foggy does - or maybe he uses his patience elsewhere, and that's why it seems like the small things piss him off. Murdock and Foggy don't get along, really, but they coexist more or less peacefully, and -  
  
Okay, so the only reason Foggy knows that Murdock does any of that shit on purpose is because Foggy knows that Murdock isn't 'real world' blind. Oh, Foggy knows as well as any superhero that Murdock can't see anything; but he also knows that Murdock has ways of compensating that put him far above any normal human's capabilities.  
  
So Murdock absolutely does mean to knock people's drinks onto their course work and their text books, and he absolutely does mean to trip them with his cane, and he absolutely means to open the door and smash that asshole in the face.  
  
And one good turn deserves another.

 

\--

  
  
But maybe Matt has a point, Foggy thinks, and feels like Alice tripping down the rabbit hole. He hadn't been dragged into the whole mess of Kingpin's empire for another few years, but Foggy's pretty sure that the spread of it is behind schedule, and -  
  
and what if it really is because Matt's in back alleys, fighting Fisk's creeping influence one human trafficking ring, one back alley arms dealer, one fucking ninja clan - _really?_ \- at a time?  
  
Matt says nothing, but when Foggy turns around, he can read it all there on Matt's face: that's the one he wears in court, when he makes his closing argument, and knows he's won the case.  
  
It infuriates Foggy. He is not a jury to be manipulated, his heart read like an open book and his thoughts controlled by a few clever words. "You're a fucking idiot, Murdock," he says. "You're so busy looking around on the streets, doing -" He flails wordless for a second, meaning all of the things that Matt has done in the flimsy name of Justice. "Who the hell is policing you? Huh? Who is making sure that while you're fighting monsters, you're not turning into one yourself?"  
  
Matt's expectant look crumples, and he decides he doesn't want Foggy to see it because he tries turning it away, only he'd have to get up off the couch to hide his face from Foggy and Foggy isn't having it. It turns dark and angry and sullen, and Matt's hand twitches, spasming, plucks at the seam of his sweats like he's going to claw it into pieces.  
  
And then he says: "You think I'm not worried about that?"

 

\--

  
  
Columbia is like some kind of bad morality tale, Foggy thinks; something like: be kind to your monsters before they grow big enough to eat the whole city, or some kind of bullshit like that. Murdock takes the first step when someone decides to be an asshole to Foggy and Murdock trips them into dogshit.  
  
After that, well, Foggy can't do less than Matthew Murdering Murdock, can he? That's like, a basic standard of human decency. If you're not a better person than the guy that who carries around a fucking handkerchief because he gets bloody often enough to plan ahead, you're doing something wrong.  
  
And Matt Murdock seems hellbent on pretending to be real-world blind and finding himself in unfortunate situations because people are _assholes_ and Foggy can't do less, so he barrels his way into those situations when he sees them coming, and fast-talks himself and Murdock out of them as quickly as he can.  
  
And he used to be DA, so he can talk pretty slick. College kids have nothing on him.  
  
(The first time it happens, Murdock more or less gapes at him, a weird little surprised and strangled look on his face. Like he expected Foggy to just leave him to the wolves, and -  
  
It's Matthew Murdering Murdock. Foggy shouldn't care what Murdock thinks of him, but that cuts him to the quick.  
  
Murdock starts to look at him with relief, then welcome relief, and then he seems to get the idea that Foggy's always going to be there to haul his bacon out of the fire, and the asshole starts going _looking_ for situations to throw himself into - domestic disturbances, situations that Foggy's horrified to find the girl or guy is _way_ too intoxicated for, pranks that were just cruel or otherwise dangerous -  
  
And well - Foggy can't yell at him too seriously for putting himself in the way of danger because at least he has Foggy to bail him out and these people that he's saving don't. Matthew Murdering Murdock grins, bright and wide and unselfconscious at Foggy, and when he gets a little tipsy - the asshole's a total lightweight - he grabs onto Foggy's arm, and -

  
One day, Foggy wakes up and realizes that his entire plan was a bust, because there's no way he's ever going to be able to kill Matt.)

 

\--

  
  
"You think I don't listen to you," Matt says, and "My priest knows," and "Claire, too, obviously," and Foggy feels like grabbing his own hair with both hands and ripping it all out.  
  
"Look," Foggy says, "I'm glad for you. You have a support network. Great, honestly. Jesus. Matt, seriously, you don't understand-"  
  
" _What_ don't I understand, Foggy," Matt asks, sharp with teeth, his jaw clenched. Angry. "You keep saying that and you never try to explain to me what you think I don't understand."  
  
"Yeah, okay," he says, and they feel like broken glass, the words, slicing into his tongue, into his gums and cheeks. "Okay, Murdock, let me help you understand."

 

\--

  
  
Foggy's twenty-three (or thirty-eight, depending on how you look at it) when he realizes that he has more or less assigned himself to being Matt Murdock's keeper, forever and ever, Amen. He's twenty four (or thirty-nine) when he realizes that it's not even a trial, when he realizes that he'd probably do it for years and years more.  
  
He's not stupid enough to think that he can change Matthew Murdering Murdock's mind, from stopping him from taking that plunge into being Kingpin's right hand, someday. He's been saving Matt from problems he creates for himself for years now, but Foggy's not so delusional that he thinks that he can save Matt from himself.  
  
It's just - he doesn't see how it could happen: Matt becoming the Matthew Murdering Murdock that Foggy knew by reputation, like the legendary red sun that heralds a path of bodies and blood. Matt breathes virtue and self-sacrifice, and he has a chip on his shoulder the size of New York, probably, and anger problems to match, but no where is any sign of the rabid dog that Foggy thought should be put down.  
  
Matt drinks and sometimes he gets maudlin - someone with Matt's history could hardly _not_ \- but usually he's too busy hanging off Foggy's shoulders and laughing, and he says "Nelson and Murdock" like it's obvious, and Foggy's heart skips a beat.

 

\--

  
  
Foggy says: "I'm forty-three - am I lying about that?" and Matt, bewildered, says, "No, you're not."  
  
By now, Foggy knows Matt Murdock better than he ever did Matthew Murdering Murdock, so he knows better than to unravel the whole sordid tale. If he does, and if Matt believes him, then he's going to gather together the sins of a life he never lead around him and weave them into a crown of thorns and place them on his own head.  
  
The words cut deep gashes into Foggy's mouth like chewing razor blades and broken glass. The words are all red-black and slimy and raw and rotten, rusty from how he's bled over them.  
  
He says, "If Fisk gains control over New York, it's going to set things into motion that can't be stopped, can't be set straight or recovered from," and Matt says, "that's what I'm trying to _stop_ " and Foggy says, "Terrific job that you've done so far!"  
  
He amends, "Well, you're doing a better job this time than last go around, considering you were Fisk's right hand man," and Matt says, " _what_ " and "you're not lying" and "why would I do that?" He's appalled and he looks to Foggy for answers, but Foggy doesn't have any for him.  
  
"I don't know, Matt, it's not like we were friends or anything," he says. "You were a psychopathic murderer who sometimes played at being a lawyer and was generally the bane of my existence as DA. We didn't exactly sit around and trade stories over a cold one."  
  
Not that Matthew Murdering Murdock hadn't offered, once, with a wide, nearly leering smile, but Foggy had been smarter than to lose his objectivity over a pretty face back then.

 

\--

  
  
It's not really that Matt drags him kicking or screaming from Landman and Zack. Sure, Foggy disapproves of their cases, and of their general underhandedness and slimy dispositions, but hey - it's all legal, and even though he didn't go with Landman and Zack originally, they'll look even better on their resume then the firm that he _had_ gone with.  
  
Foggy had always meant to change things when he became DA. It's just that before he could do that, all this mess with the Kingpin happened.  
  
It's not that Matt really drags him away, or that he follows out of a sense of duty to keep on eye on the man that might one day be Kingpin's right hand. No - Foggy isn't as virtuous as that. Foggy follows Matt because he _wants_ to follow Matt. He _wants_ "Nelson and Murdock." Matt doesn't smile nearly enough while they're interning, and then Foggy takes out loans to buy the office and Matt doesn't seem to _stop_ smiling, and that -  
  
Yeah, Foggy doesn't have any objectivity left in this, apparently. He always thought that Matthew Murdock was attractive, but the whole 'killing people and freeing criminals' thing had always been a turn off. Virtue and self-sacrifice, on the other hand?

 

\--

  
  
"Of course," Foggy says, "back then, or - in the future, or whatever, Karen apparently became the Kingpin's hitman somehow? I'm still not clear on how that happened. She certainly didn't kill David Fischer and she certainly doesn't strike me as a cold blooded killer. Too many tears, for one."  
  
"Wilson Fisk doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that cares if people cry when they kill people, as long as they do," Matt says lowly, some of that old, rusty-knife anger crawling out of his skin.  
  
He's pale and sickly looking, his shoulders and legs tense but his face slack like he's taken a bad shock and it hasn't set in yet. Matt doesn't look as heart broken as he had when it was _his_ secrets being spilled, but he doesn't look like he's taking this well, either. Matt shivers and shakes like he's caught cold in his bones, and tugs at the seams of his pants like they might unravel and take this whole uncomfortable situation with them.  
  
Matt says, "So basically, you came back in time to kill me," so deliberate and incredulous as such a thing should be said.  
  
"I came back in time to kill Fisk's right hand man," Foggy says, and Matt snaps, "Who was _me_ ," and Foggy says, "Yes, fine, alright: I came back in time to kill you, but apparently I'm not much of a murderer, which is fine because you're not Fisk's right hand man, are you?"  
  
"But you think I could be," he says.  
  
"Matt," he says, "You actually _were_ . At some point, you made the decision to become his right hand man. I don't know how or why, but you did, and you excelled at that like you always excel at everything else, and I knew I had to put a stop to it."  
  
Matt blinks a few times, and he says, with a levity that's much too bright and sharp: "I always knew you were hiding something. I just didn't realize it was me."  
  
The conversation goes downhill from there.

 

\--

  
  
Nelson and Murdock shatters and falls apart and Karen's upset but Foggy doesn't know how to fix any of it, isn't even sure he should try. The last time he tried fixing anything, after all, he made a huge mess and ended up falling in love with the man who was the problem in the first place. So.  
  
Which he has - fallen in love with Matt. Not because Matt is brightness or light or anything like that, because he's not - Matt is full of fire and shadows and bitterness and bile. But there is also goodness inside of Matt, covered with a thin layer of a shitty sense of humor, and Foggy's always tended to love people in spite of themselves.  
  
But all his own trying to fix things have left them like this, where Matt and Foggy can't hardly stand to be in the same room. He thinks that Matt _wants_ everything to be fixed in his own twisted kind of way, and well - Foggy's not great at staying objective about Matt Goddamned Murdock, and Foggy's technically the mature adult here even if Matt is twenty-eight years old, so Foggy takes the first step.  
  
Foggy hunts Matt down to the old haunts that he only knows this Matt for, and sees an anger (a hurt) too hot and raw to ever belong to the man that Foggy came back in time to stop. He says, "Matt, you're my best friend. The only best friend I've ever really had, and you scare the everloving shit out of me with all this vigilante bullshit, because I'm worried you're going to get killed and I'm worried what might happen and what kind of decisions you might make, but I'm not ready to call it quits, or I never would have let us become friends to begin with."  
  
And Matt lays into the punching bag with a punch vicious enough that anyone but Foggy probably would have flinched. He turns away from Foggy, then turns back, like he doesn't know where to go, what step is safe to take. Matt leans his head back as he picks and peels back the wraps around his knuckles. Even so, they look raw and abused, though not quite bloody.  
  
He says, "Oh, are we friends? Funny. I thought I was a parolee, rattling at the bars."  
  
And well, Foggy can see why he'd feel that way. "Okay, I deserve that," he says. He wants to say he doesn't - but Matt has the right of it. Foggy sat around watching Matt closely, analyzing his behavior for any signs that he'd become Murdering Murdock.  
  
Matt scoffs, but it's breathy and helpless, full of impotent anger; he's clearly spoiling for a fight, vibrating in place and looking for something to strike out at, and Foggy's never been fond of being anyone's punching bag.  
  
Foggy stays quiet and still, but when Matt doesn't say anything further, he takes the next step. "Look. Yes, I was keeping an eye on you - that was the whole point, and I'm not going to be sorry for that. But I didn't deliberately set out to be your friend, Matt, or to manipulate you or deceive you. I can be an asshole, but subterfuge is not my strong point."  
  
"But you thought it was mine," Matt says, prickly and sharp.  
  
"Well, actually, apparently it is," Foggy snaps with a hot rush of anger. "You went out and became a fucking vigilante with no one the wiser!" He catches his breath, the words between his teeth, and breathes deep because he didn't come hear to recap that argument. He still thinks it's the worst, stupidest, most dangerous thing that Matt could have done, just short of becoming Murdering Murdock.  
  
"I would have thought that would make you feel relief," Matt says, low and dark and angry. "Isn't that the opposite of what you were trying to stop me from being?"  
  
"Yeah, apparently you're ignoring the part where I said 'psychopathic murderer,' Matt - going out and beating the shit out of people in back alleys dressed in black pajamas really isn't that far from it," Foggy says sharply. "And I didn't try to stop you from being anything. If I noticed you going down that road, I probably would have tried to stop you, yes. Because you're my _friend_ , Matt."  
  
Matt's head is cocked, and he stays still for a second before his nose flares and he snorts, finishing stripping the bandages off his hands and rolling them up. "You're a piece of work, Foggy," he says, but he's not all that angry anymore, or at least not fighting mad. "Okay. Make me understand. You say 'psychopathic murderer,' and -?"  
  
"Aw, jeez," Foggy says. He doesn't want to get into this. Matt could still easily craft himself a crown of thorns if he decides he has too many things in common with the guy.  
  
"I already know you're scared of him," Matt says, stuffing the rolled bandages into the bag. "That first year, your heart rate was off the charts anytime you could see me."  
  
"That's still creepy," he says, which it should be, but he's not really all that bothered by it because if Matt can do it, then so did Murdering Murdock, and that's infinitely more terrifying. Matt has so far used his senses for good; it could be worse.  
  
Either way, he tries to explain. Murdering Murdock was a man Foggy knew more by reputation than any personal experience, but considering how far in he was with superheros, he heard a _lot_ . Matt says, "You're kidding me. You had an in with the Avengers and you're giving me Hell for becoming a vigilante?" his mouth curled into an asshole-smirk of disbelief, and Foggy says, "I care a lot less if one of those idiots bites the dust, Matt, and also they were a team and had backup, don't fight me on this, you won't win."  
  
(Foggy tells him what he can, what he knows, and doesn't say it when he realizes: _oh God_ , but Matt could become that man again and Foggy would probably still love him.)  
  
Matt doesn't say anything when Foggy stops talking, more or less standing there and brooding, or maybe listening to something ten blocks away, who knows. When Foggy can't handle it anymore, he says, "So, alright, you're a dangerous vigilante and I'm a time traveler. Where does that leave us, Matt?"  
  
Matt comes back to life, zipping up his bag and throwing it over his shoulder. "Living in a glass house," he says dryly. "Not that it makes a big difference for me. Good luck adjusting." He reaches out and pats Foggy's shoulder with a smirk before heading for the showers.  
  
"That's not really an answer, you asshole," Foggy calls after him, annoyed, except the way it actually is.

 

\--

  
  
Foggy already has extensive experience working with superheros, and it takes him very little time at all to adjust to Matt being a vigilante - although, he supposes not that Matt has a handle, 'Daredevil,' he now counts fully as a superhero, if a very local one. It takes Matt a few weeks more to adjust to the fact that Foggy's from a future that no longer exists.  
  
Karen gets suspicious of them from time to time, and Matt looks at Foggy with his annoyingly smug grin and tells him "I'll tell her when you do," which is - what? Why would Karen ever need to know Foggy's a time traveler, _it's not the same thing at all!_  
  
And things are almost normal - not 'this timeline' normal, but Foggy's original timeline normal: this 'being on the inside of the crime fighting superheros' thing. All the double speak and subterfuge. Foggy wasn't lying; he's shit at subterfuge, but Matt seems to gain endless amounts of amusement from the times Foggy accidentally takes a metaphor too far and it becomes weird.  
  
(Or maybe he does it on purpose, it's hard to tell - it's just that Matt grins or Matt throws back his head and laughs, and Foggy thinks, _God, I love him,_ and his chest gets tight and his heart skips a beat, and Matt very politely doesn't even blink.)

 

\--

  
  
Matt says, blood still clotted around his nose: "Remember when I went to talk to the woman with Fisk? I wondered who could love a man like that."  
  
"Yeah, try shutting up for a bit," Foggy advises, trying to mop the blood off Matt's face where it has spilled down from his scalp. "You sure you don't have an actual head injury? A concussion? Can't we call Claire, I'm really not at my best when dealing with blood."  
  
"No, we can't," Matt says, looping his fingers around Foggy's wrist, but not trying to pull him away or hold him still or anything. "Claire doesn't want to see me anymore."  
  
"I seriously doubt she'll hold your break-up against you when you're injured," he says dryly. "She's a nurse. She probably does the whole Hippocratic 'first, do no harm' thing. Do nurses take that oath? If not, they totally should, they see more patients than doctors do."  
  
It's really just a gash in Matt's scalp, Foggy thinks. It'll be hell on Matt's poor skin and hair, the way it's going to clot, plus any bandages that they use to seal it. He's being as careful as he can, trying to stem the floor of blood, but Matt doesn't even twitch. Foggy's never going to be use to Matt's immunity to pain. Or maybe immunity is the wrong way to think of it, maybe strength of will in ignoring it -  
  
Holding his hand still by the hand on his wrist, Matt ducks out from under it and leans up to catch Foggy in a kiss, which is -  
  
"Oh, you're disgusting," Foggy says over the pounding of his heart, because Matt's lips are tacky with his own blood. "You're really -" He can't really help but lean in, to press his mouth to Matt's, which curls into a smug, pleased grin. "You are punch-drunk," he points out, pulling back even as he puts his free hand over Matt's face and pushes him back. "I'm not falling for this, Matthew, I've seen too many superheros pull this whole 'kissy face with the nurse' routine - I am not even an actual nurse, like Claire, who I suspect you pulled this exact same thing with."  
  
Looking mildly insulted, Matt says, "I did not."  
  
"Yeah, I'm not believing that," Foggy says with a sigh. "Try again later, when you're not gross and covered in blood and probably concussed."  
  
And Matt, never one to back down from a dare, does.  
  
He also makes the mistake of completing the thought he started while punch-drunk and probably concussed, which is this: he'd wanted to know what kind of woman could love a man like Fisk, but he'd never stopped to think about what kind of person could love a man like _himself_ , and Foggy says, "oh, what. Thanks for comparing me to the Kingpin's girlfriend, asshole. We're not all deranged art dealers, some of us are poor-ass lawyers who will never make DA at this rate," and Matt laughs himself silly and says, sincerely, "I'm sure you can overcome the setbacks, Foggy," but Foggy just huffs and makes annoyed noises until Matt's moved to kiss him quiet.  
  
Foggy didn't come back in time for this - but it's not a half bad reward for a job well done; even if he's not the one that stopped the expansion of the Kingpin's empire in the first place.

 

\--

  
  
(Matt disagrees with that.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually feel this is kind of the ideal situation for Matt here? Foggy has seen like the worst side of Matt already, the rest of it is nbd.


	7. (Housemate AU) Player 3; K/M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you hear your housemate having loud sex, a cool thing to do is kick down the door and shout 'PLAYER 3 HAS ENTERED THE GAME'"  
> and [these people](http://patster223.tumblr.com/post/134917901700/steampunkepsilon-oikaw-atooru-imagine-your) said: "imagine your ot3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is no porn scene written herein, but lots of talk about sex, baby.

* * *

Karen likes Matt, she really does. He might just be the best guy out there, and she's met more than a few. He's polite and neat and just standoffish enough that her immediate attraction to him cooled - she knew it would be a bad idea to have a crush on her potential housemate, but lucky they slid quite easily and cleanly into friendship. He's a great guy, and a superb housemate! He's clean and cleans up after himself and doesn't smoke or deal drugs or own animals and - 

Karen has had a few bad housemates, if you hadn't noticed. If not for the purely 'bad housemate' aspect, then because they seemed to think she came with the house. She does not date her housemates! And if she does, she will be wined and dined, first. And when she refuses, and they try to bully her - 

See, Matt doesn't threaten her. It's not that he's blind or anything; she's watched him snap and threaten people before, and she's not sure how or why he's learned it, but Matt can beat the shit out of people. But he's never been anything but polite and friendly and sympathetic and he always pays his half of the rent and utilities on time, and - 

(she might be in a one-sided domestic relationship with her housemate, okay, but she dares anyone to live with Matt and not find other people lacking. Moods nothing; everyone struggles with bad moods. She makes sure Matt has food and water and lets him sleep in or otherwise turns on the tv in the living room or if he has to go in to work, then she pokes him until he gets up.)

But there is. One. One small point of contention - just the one. One point of contention in their relationship that's threatening to drive her up a wall. 

\--

For a blind man, Matt sure is fucking loud during sex. 

Okay, but really, Karen thinks, pressing her pillow down over her head. It makes the earplugs dig uncomfortably into her ears, and yet it still doesn't block out the strangled, surprised noise down the hall, followed by a rumbling, helpless groan. What does being blind have to do with how noisy Matt is during sex? Well, apparently his hearing is really good, and if he can complain to her about how sounds carry in the house, then he should know to be careful about it himself!

It would be one thing, she thinks with a hot, twisted feeling in her chest - (Matt sinking into some long-legged gorgeous thing; she's seen his ex, and _wow_ , honestly, for a blind man Matt picks some lookers - long elegant limbs and dark slanted eyes and long brunette hair, nothing at all like Karen) - it would be one thing, if this was a once-a-week thing. 

Okay, maybe once every two weeks; Karen's New Years resolution was to be honest with herself. Well - if she's being honest, she'd like nothing more than to be the one under Matt, but she isn't. She's honest enough to almost admit that she wouldn't mind being one of two sets of hands on him. She doesn't have a lot of practical experience with women, but she's pretty sure she could catch on quick.

Down the hall, a gasped breath breaks into "ah," drawn and strangled and shaking, and Karen gives her own groan - of exasperation, even though her skin is humming and there's a tight tingling between her thighs. If she's going to have sex with people - and she counts getting off to her unfortunate voyeur kink as 'having sex with,' thanks - it's not going to be without their permission. She can't make out the gist of the panted words through so many walls, but she knows Matt is saying something to his partner. 

They're quieter after that, and Karen sighs and rolls over and wills her humming body to quiet. She will at least wait until they're done and Matt's partner either leaves of they fall asleep before tending to her own needs. 

\--

Only, Matt's sexual escapades don't decline. He's flushed and apologetic in the morning, and he makes it up to her by starting the coffee and being helpful in general, but that - that's not really the problem here. She already likes Matt, she doesn't need the bashful tilt of his head and his red cheeks and pleased-but-sorry twist of his mouth. She already wants to bite his lips, what is wrong with him? 

And three, sometimes four nights a week, Matt's having loud sex in his bedroom with his mystery partner and Karen thinks she's fucked herself sore on her own fingers and she decides she's finally had _enough_ , if she doesn't do something she's just going to boot Matt right out the door, the only housemate she has ever evicted for being too sweet and attractive, apparently. 

She's tired from sleepless nights and a jealous heart and the relentless throb that exists between her clenching thighs at all hours of the day and stupidly aroused by the choked, broken noise down the hallway, and Karen thinks: This is it. 

Karen thinks: This is it, and she flings her covers dramatically to the side so they flop off onto the floor, only hanging on by the edge she hasn't kicked loose yet tonight. She shoves up and slides off the bed and yanks her bedroom door open wildly. 

She doesn't storm, she _strides_ down the hallway and has a moment to appreciate that Matt's bedroom doesn't lock because he accidentally broke it somehow coming home late and drunk one night, and she wraps her fingers around it, hearing Matt, breathless and panting, saying, "Wait, wait, oh shit -"

Swinging the door open so fast it thuds loudly against the doorstop, Karen puts her hands on her hips and loudly declares: "Okay, this is just rude!"

"Oh, holy shit," Matt's partner says faintly. He - _he_ \- is sprawl on his back, half covered with blankets, the other half grasped desperately around Matt's hips. He is - very blond, and pale, and male, and plump with a sweet face that is currently staring at her with no little amount of trepidation, like he's not sure Karen's not going to produce a very large knife or gun at this point. 

Matt seems much less conflicted, if his clenched jaw and belligerent expression are anything to judge by, but he should know better, and Karen hasn't been impressed with Matt's furious faces since the first time he socked one of her ex-tenants that thought he was owed any more of Karen's time. 

Karen is extremely flexible and good at thinking on the fly, and never is she more grateful for this than now, as she realizes that this little revelation has done absolutely nothing to change her plans. 

Matt's partner coughs and says, "Uh, sorry?" 

"It's been three months," Karen informs him, which makes him flush bright pink and clashes with his blond hair in a way that Karen can deeply empathize with. "For three months, I have been losing sleep while you two have the time of your lives, and I have had enough." 

Matt peels his lips back from his teeth and nastily says, "This couldn't have waited until morning, or better yet, yesterday?" 

"Shut up," she says unkindly, because this is all Matt's fault anyway - which reminds her to turn back to his partner. "Also, congratulations, I don't think I've ever heard Matt be so loud before you came around. Hi, I'm Karen, this idiot's housemate. Are you bi at all?" 

"Hi?" he says, confused and alarmed, and he shuffles up to take her hand and shake it. "Thanks. Um? I'm Foggy. I am -" His face scrunches up like he's not sure entirely why he's answering, but he says, "very bi. At least bi." 

"Oh, good," Karen says, and promptly strips out of her shirt. 

"What are you doing," Matt demands, just on the right side of hostile. There's actually a faint note of alarm to his voice. She is almost surprised he knows something happened at all, but not really; Matt's pretty good at inferring, and Foggy did squeak pretty loudly just then. 

"You, Matt Murdock, owe me an orgasm. You actually owe me three months worth of orgasms, but as a lenient and benevolent master of this house, I will allow your partner to help you work them off," she says. 

"That is - quiet a generous offer," Foggy says, blinking rapidly, "but - ah." He stops talking when Karen shimmies out of her pajama bottoms and adjusts the half of the sheet not around Matt's hips to better cover himself, but she's not mistaking the way he approves of what he sees. Well, good. He's not her type, but she thinks she can definitely work with someone who makes Matt bite his lips bright red. 

"Look," Karen says stridently, not about to falter now. "We can all be sane and reasonable in the morning, but I have lost sleep to you and your ridiculously skilled bed partner, and I demand reparation."

"I can - uh," Foggy says, then looks at Matt helplessly. "She has a point?" 

Matt looks a bit like he wants to shove between the two of them and hold them apart, like there's going to be some kind of fight, all tense, muscled shoulders and clenched jaw. Then he sighs, as if in defeat, and says, "Fine," sullenly. 

Karen smiles at them beatifically as she strips out of her panties. "Finally," she says, with great satisfaction, and "You won't regret it." 

\--

Even with the two of them, it takes a while to work off three months worth of orgasms, and if by the time that Karen figured her terms were met, she actually had two housemates instead of just the one - well. She finds that situation suits her perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never did get to the part where Matt is equally possessive of them both and gets weird and sullen sometimes because he wants them both in bed with him, yes, but also "mine mine mine" and "pay attention to meeee" but it was my favorite part of imagining this scenario - 
> 
> other than turning the usual dynamic on it's head :3c


	8. Sidhe au; M/F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let me get this straight," Marci says flatly. "You're going to bind a murderous spirit-god to yourself because you feel sorry for it?"  
> \--  
> inspired by the "maybe it's a weird psuedo-celtish thing where Matt-as-Daredevil is like a new world urban Horned God protector-spirit-of-the-city" part of [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/6237.html?thread=12024925#cmt12024925) prompt on the kinkmeme. I actually went for a more traditional understanding of the Horned God? bc fuk yea antlers
> 
>  **Warning** : unpleasant implications, also vague and euphemistic and really inadvisable sex.

* * *

There are about eleven different contradictory rules to dealing with the sidhe, at a generous estimate. Surviving a meeting with one has equally much to do with luck - how well it goes depends entirely on the sidhe's mood, and also just how clever the human was and how unclever the sidhe was. 

Typically, unless the human was exceptionally clever, the sidhe was always moreso. Thus: the importance of knowing and following the rules. 

Foggy is about two, maybe three generations separate from the last person who knew all the rules by heart. Foggy is perhaps the first of his line to _not_ know the rules. It hadn't seemed important. Sure, the sidhe exist - everyone knows that, has for twenty years now, but actually meeting one - or proving that you've met one - is nearly impossible. 

Nearly so, because what Foggy is looking at right now is definitely a sidhe, he knows. One, because of the glowing ward circles it's trapped within, two, because there are _horns_ in violent and magnificent display growing out of its head, sharp definitely-not-herbivore teeth in its mouth, and three, because the words it speaks are twisted tight with fury and inhuman harmonics, like hunting horns and wild things screaming battle and death cries. 

In other words: It's mildly terrifying. 

"I'll do it," he says. 

"You what, Foggy-bear," says Marci, looking at him flatly with her lip peeled just slightly back from her teeth. 

She's not the only one. No one is having a good time here, and not just because this is another fucked up thing that they've been left to deal with while their bigger and tougher members rush on ahead to deal with the actual sidhe involved, but dealing with sidhe-cults is just about the worst. Dealing with sidhe-worshippers who are dealing with actual sidhe and actually have a sidhe trapped and to themselves is possibly a worst-case scenario. The only way it could be more terrible is if the sidhe were loose. 

And that's more or less what Foggy has just suggested. 

"I'm pretty sure the Folk won't hold it against you if you let the spell wear itself out and cast it back to the sidhe-lands," Malcolm says, giving Foggy a look that's mingled concern and reproach. Malcolm is good at that, and Foggy's slightly annoyed about it. He tends to be concerned about the group as a whole, which only means that he dislikes it when one member could possibly be causing trouble for the others, even inadvertently. 

In this case, Malcolm is probably exactly correct; he has a lot more experience in all this sidhe stuff than Foggy does, despite Foggy being one of the only ones of Irish descent here. Malcolm and his friends Jessica and Luke have been fighting one loose sidhe in particular for _years_ , from what Foggy understands, but - 

He looks at the sidhe trapped in the wards and having fallen silent at Foggy's words. It's dressed in ragged cloth and moss and fur, all stained rust-red like flesh ripped open with teeth and claws, strips hanging from its wide, branching horns like gore. Its hands are curled into angry, twisted claws, with long, cruel black talons, its head cocked as it listens. Its chest heaves with breath like hunting hounds and something chased, loud and fast and billowing thick and white in the tepid air like something hideously, impossibly hot burns inside its ribs. 

"Yeah," Foggy says to Malcolm, and gestures helplessly. "But look at him?"

They do. It's possible that Marci and Malcolm are less than touched by the sharp white teeth being bared at them, at the long talons and dozen sharp black points on its branching antlers. 

"I'm about eighty-percent sure that thing is related to a red-cap," Malcolm says unhelpfully. 

"Let me get this straight," Marci says flatly. "You're going to bind a murderous spirit-god to yourself because you feel sorry for it?" 

Well. When she puts it that way. 

"I'm actually pretty sure this is less binding and more like marriage," Foggy says, casting another look at the ceremonial circles and wards trapping the sidhe in place. 

"Oh, perfect," Marci says, sharp and bright like someone snapping snapping a glow-stick in half. The smile she has on her face is equally shining and toxic if consumed. "You're going to _marry_ a murderous spirit-god, who will then do who knows what to your immortal soul. That's terrific. Well. It was nice knowing you. Enjoy living in the sidhe-hills, so eye-blind with enchantments you don't emerge for several hundred years!" 

"Thanks for your blessings," Foggy says dryly. Marci's not _wrong_ \- that is the most common outcome for those who get caught up in sidhe-matters. And yet - "Look," Foggy says, "I know what I'm doing -"

When both Marci and Malcolm look at him entirely unimpressed, he hisses and waves his hands at them. 

"Okay, I am _pretty sure_ I know what I'm doing," he corrects testily. 

"I'm pretty sure you don't," Marci says. 

"Would you trust me?" he says sharply. 

Marci and Malcolm share a look of consideration. It's a little much to ask, Foggy knows that. When dealing with sidhe worshipers, and especially the sidhe that is running loose, the one that Jessica and Luke are chasing after even now - trust is dangerous. Trust is actually often fatal, and not immediately, even if someone wishes it were at the time it all goes wrong. 

"God, I hope you know what you're doing," Marci says, her hostile expression fading into something more like concern and dread. She really, really means it, is the thing. Foggy has never exactly doubted the fact that Marci likes him, but if he had, this would be all the confirmation he would need. 

"I still don't like this," Malcolm says, but he wouldn't - he lost ten years in the human realm to sidhe tricks, until at last he broke free of the sidhe's hold. No human escapes unscathed from being held close by one of them. 

And Foggy's about to do so willingly, but - 

The area is about as secured as it's going to get, but both Marci and Malcolm give him space and privacy and go to make sure there are no more traps or tricks laying in wait for them. Foggy turns back to the sidhe trapped within the wards. There are bright points in empty air - not light, not anything _seen_ but from fifteen feet away, it feels like pressure. Points where the sidhe's claws impact the wards, and the points of its horns, too. 

Foggy smiles. He doesn't know any of the rules of how to survive a deal with the sidhe, the first of his line to not know so in a thousand years, perhaps. He'll just have to rely on the fact that the blood that flows through his veins first flowed through his ancestors, whom lived at the doorstep of the sidhe-lands and managed to thrive. 

"So," Foggy says lightly, "how would you like to get revenge on the sidhe that put you there?"

The horned sidhe's head cocks, and then it smiles with thousands of sharp teeth in a hundred crushed throats, white like bone and red like blood.

\--

"Come closer," the sidhe beckons; the wild, fierce harmonics have softened, become more like the crackle of a wildfire, of smoke and ash than things screaming and dying. 

"I'm good, thanks," Foggy says. "I like to know what I'm agreeing to before I act on it, you know." 

"You've already decided," it points out, pulling back from the edge of the wards and pacing back and forth; slow, steady steps. Silent. Like things creeping through brush, through shadow and grass on soft paws and claws. 

"Yeah, but the terms, you know," he says. The way it moves is hypnotizing, the flex and slack of muscle, the roll of joints and limb. It barely resembles anything human. "It's kind of against my nature to leave you hanging there for seven days and seven nights when I can get you out." 

It bares teeth at the reminder, but it's a fleeting expression. "Soft heart," it says with teeth that look hungry for it. The trailing, ragged strips of gore on its horns sway with its movements. 

"Yeah, it's one of my more endearing faults," Foggy says. "So? What do you say? Revenge on the sidhe that put you there in return for behaving yourself like a mortal person?" 

The snarl that passes over its face is less fleeting this time. "Seven days and seven nights is not so long for one like me," it says, and it sounds like it speaks in eons of time, which were possibly equal to it as mortal days. 

"No," Foggy agrees, "but the way I hear it, the door isn't easy to get through - the one between here and the sidhe-lands. Plus, I could be wrong, but isn't the guy that put you here one of the lords of the court?" 

It doesn't speak, growing still and turning its head toward Foggy. Foggy wonders if there's even a face under all that rust-red cloth, dangling in torn strips like bits of flesh and gore. "You're fighting the one that calls himself Kilgrave in this land," it says, "but you won't win. Your band has only two warriors and no magicians to escape his powers." 

"We haven't done too badly so far," Foggy disagrees, but then he shrugs and concedes the point. "And half of us are only somewhat trained and then you have me, and I'm barely a sidekick. Collateral damage, really. Kilgrave is a whale in a pond, we're all getting squished and thrown out of the water, here."

It's a bit upsetting to say so - all mortal men are at the mercy of the sidhe, and Foggy thinks that is about as fair as anyone else in America thinks it is. But it's the truth, and Foggy might be collateral damage, having been dragged into this thing against his will, but - 

"Look," he says, "it's no big deal to me if you and the rest of the sidhe get on everyone's bad side and start some kind of mundane-supernatural war - okay, no, it's a big deal. It's a _huge_ deal. Even you should know something about it. My guess is that you haven't left sidhe-lands in the last two hundred years considering the whole - wild animal, nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw thing you have going on there - and maybe a mortal-sidhe war wouldn't affect you at all, but it's going to ruin _my_ home. Stopping Kilgrave is the quickest way to stop the war. So do you want revenge or not?" 

The sidhe doesn't budge and inch, doesn't twitch or toss its head. The gore hanging from its horns doesn't so much as sway. It says, "Yes. I want revenge." It tilts its head then, looking for all that it is _sniffing_ him from fifteen feet away, and perhaps that's a smile on its mouth then. It says, "A binding for the length of a mortal life is nothing to me. For a mortal, it would be all they would know. You would do this? Bind yourself to me, forswear all others and be beholden to none above me for the sake of this dull clay world?"

Foggy says, "Yes."

The smile on the sidhe's face twists, losing the look a human might give a mayfly, and turns more into a snarl that doesn't seem aimed at him. It stands there for a moment longer, shifting from foot to foot like a tree swaying under the force of the wind, and then it says, dispassionately, "The binding will only take if there is consummation." It plucks at the long rust-red tatters that hand from long, wiry limbs, like it's reminding Foggy just what he'll have to lie with. 

"Yeah, I kind of figured something like that," Foggy says faintly, glancing toward the door. That was the way of the sidhe, and also why Marci and Malcolm had left to give him space for this. He looks back to the sidhe and shrugs. "Can't be weirder than some of the people I've had sex with, notably in college when I was mostly drunk and desperately lonely." 

The sidhe exhales, stepping toward the barrier of the ward again. "Come closer," it beckons him again, talons sharp and black as onyx, fingertips stained the same color of dried blood as the rest of it. "Bind yourself to me, and you will never be alone again for the rest of your days." 

"Until you kill me, you mean," Foggy says, but his feet are moving of their own accord. "Actually, let's make that a clause. I'll marry you and get you out of those wards, but no killing people and no terminating our marriage ahead of its natural conclusion, okay?" 

"Death is as natural as life," the sidhe says, baring its thousands-of-teeth-in-a-hundred-throats. "You call it murder and defy the laws of nature in prohibiting it - but," it says inclining its head until the points of its antlers and the trembling gore press against the ward, "the rules of your household will be the ones I abide during my time here."

Foggy takes a breath for courage, and he says, "Okay. I trust you." The sidhe's mouth slackens into a soft shape of surprise, and Foggy reflects that his luck has always been better than most. 

He reaches across the wards and takes hold of the sidhe's moss and fur covered form, and kisses that mouth full of a thousand sharp teeth.

\--

Foggy has steeled himself against the taste of rot and blood and death, hot predator breath and razor sharp teeth that would slice his lips and tongue wide open. What he gets is soft and warm like sunlit leaves, faintly green, and thick like loamy earth, and sweet like fresh water welling from the earth below. 

His luck is better than most, so Foggy knows that the sidhe most dangerous to mortal men are the ones that look sweetest and fairest, glowing with voices like bells. So Foggy feels as safe as he can, marrying this sidhe with his monstrous form and bloodstained hands and all the teeth through thousands of years of things hunting and killing and eating one another. 

Talons that are razor sharp and black as onyx curl around Foggy's skin, and don't so much as scratch him. There are a thousand sharp teeth in the sidhe's mouth, but not one is bared against him, and the sidhe presses its soft wet mouth against the thrumming vein in Foggy's neck and breathes against him. That act alone seems to jangle and ring through all of Foggy's nerves, shorten his breath and weaken his knees.

"I know I agreed to consummation," Foggy says, and God, but he sounds wrecked already - wrecked and nervous, too; but he should, placing himself in the hands of this bloodied spirit-god. "But - um. I don't see any condoms or lube - do you?"

The sidhe hums against his throat, unconcerned, and the vibrations crash through Foggy, and - point taken. Point taken. He won't even need to be touched to be undone by the sidhe. Or maybe that wasn't the point at all, because the sidhe moves his mouth, following his plucking talons down to Foggy's collarbone, and says, "I am to be your spouse; your body will not deny me."

"That is - slight terrifying," Foggy manages, but there is blood pounding though his veins and the hot pulse of of sidhe magic and the heavy weight of the ceremony that's binding them together and he says 'terrifying' but his body feels as though it's going to rattle apart if he doesn't get closer.

Then he realizes what must be meant by his body not 'denying' the sidhe, and that's not - but he still can't stop touching the sidhe, its strong arms and muscular shoulders and the tatters of cloth and moss and fur. Despite its color, none of it is wet; it's dry and warm and smells of leaf-rot and ferns and only under that, something metallic at the back of Foggy's throat, like a nosebleed.

It touches all over him, tucking sharp tips of talons into each fold of cloth and then past it and over skin that escapes unscathed and unbloodied. It's kindling something in him, every place that the sidhe touches throbbing with the pulse of his own heart and crackling with sidhe-magic. Foggy is taken to his knees, fire and lightning igniting his veins and a sweet spring of water at his mouth to quench it, indecent and wet and full of teeth. The sidhe puts him on his back on the rumpled tangle of his own suit, and kneels between his thighs and reaches down below them. 

Foggy swallows his next panting breath and manages to speak. "I don't know how this works for sidhe," he says, twisting slightly, wanting to put his elbow beneath him, "but humans don't just - not even for spo-"

Whatever he was about to say is subsumed with hot, burning arousal, enough to leave him seeing stars and clawing at the the sidhe, bits of moss and fur sticking under his nails. His body gives and stretches under the force of its talons that still don't so much as scratch him. Some desperate lonely corner of Foggy's mind registers that it makes no sense, but the larger part of it is lit up like the wildest thunderstorms.

The sidhe says something with hot, panting breaths, something in a tongue that barely registers as words, and there are the harmonics of a million wild things there, hunting and killing and fucking and dying. It grips Foggy's hips in both hands and with equal ease pushes into him like he was made for it, for this very purpose and shakes and trembles in the same gale that's left Foggy's thighs so unsteady.

There are hot, foreign things tying him in knots inside, vows and sidhe-magic that are undoing something normal and human and making it something other. It should be terrifying - it is terrifying - and he struggles for some form of thought, swallowing; it feels like drinking liquid lightning. He swallows, and quakes, and above him the sidhe seems to vibrate and breathes clouds of hot breath that steam wetly over his chest. 

His mouth opens because he can't swallow it all, the hot liquid lightning, and out of it comes words, a stray thought shaken free. He shakes and pants and says, "If you weren't sidhe, this wouldn't work like this." 

The sidhe exhales, long and rattling. "If I weren't sidhe," it says, low and pointed, "you wouldn't be marrying me." It grips him tight and then begins to move, steady and purposeful.

The thought flickers without cause through his brain: lie back and think of England. But there is sidhe magic in his veins and his entire body is singing like a struck bell, and there is a thunderstorm in his brain and a gale rattling his bones - and he's American, besides. He's going to Hell, he thinks, because he's having a religious experience on his back under a horned spirit-god, please consider his soul bought and paid-for.

He loops his arms around the sidhe's shoulders and hooks his legs around the steady, relentless roll of its hips, digging his heels into its back. Something molten and bright is replacing his spine, slackening his muscles and making his heart hammer so fast it's bound to give out.

"Please," he says, and a startled noise escapes the sidhe. "Please," he says again, god, needing _something,_ needing something _more_ and unmindful of the tattered cloth and fur against his bare skin, the brush of the ragged, coppery smelling things hanging from its horns.

Taloned hands press on his thigh, opening him wider, and the sidhe speaks in hushed tones: wild noises that couldn't be called lyrical except there was a rhythm to them, punctuated by impossibly hot panted breaths, that could barely be called words except there seemed to be a structure to them.

Foggy will erect a heretical shrine to the sidhe at the end of this, no matter what happens from here on out. He feels ripped apart and sewn back together and it doesn't hurt but it's destroying him, only barely held together with taloned hands and the unsteady thrust of its hip, forcing its way inside of him and wearing away at him and he's going to burn to ashes. He was always going to, but he's going to combust and violently because no one escapes the sidhe unscathed. 

He's going to combust, burst into fire and light and so much smoke and wind and ashes. The sidhe's mouth is the last oasis before a land of molten rock and obsidian, wet and steaming, and it stutters and hitches against his skin. It pins him down and brackets him in gore and bone in twelve violent black points, and its face is nothing but rusty-red cloth and a red mouth full of a thousand white teeth, shining and wet. It's a siren call and there is no wax in his ears and he leans up and kisses that mouth and drinks deep; to do otherwise would invite calamity. 

It grips the back of his neck and his hair with onyx black talons and blood stained fingers, and takes hold of him, and rips his orgasm out of him like ripping his throat out with its teeth.

\--

Foggy wakes up with very little question of what happened to him in his head: the heavy bonds of ceremonial magic lay on him like iron chains, and under that is something molten and dangerous that was stitched and mashed into him so that it'd be uncomfortable if not for how reluctant and elusive it is, lurking under his ribs like a skittish cat. He's cleaned and clothed and exhausted, and feels oddly like he was pulled limb from limb, stretched thin and shaky.

Some distances away, he hears: "- wanted him so badly, you should have married him yourself."

"Oh, honey," comes Marci's voice, sugar-sweet as anti-freeze, "I will rip your pretty little head off and mount it on my wall, and give it very fond looks every time I remember what a trusting little fool Foggy is."

Foggy had actually been rooting for Marci until that last bit - it's always safer to root for Marci until proven otherwise - though he's not quite sure who she's arguing with. It sounds like he needs to be on his feet, like, yesterday, and so he belatedly gets right on it.

"You should be more grateful to fall under the protection of a soft heart like his," the other says, something faint and wild echoing under the words; "if not for him, your veins would already be drawn from your skin and braided to rope to hang you with." 

"He would do it, too," Malcolm says grimly, to which Marci snaps, "Yes, I know," and he mutters, "God, I hate the sidhe."

Welp. Apparently, that was Foggy's psychopathic sidhe spouse. Okay then.

He gets up and makes it to the door of the ceremony room, outside of which are his friends and his - his fairy wife. Fairy husband. Sidhe-spouse. Yeah, sidhe-spouse. His sidhe-spouse who is now dressed in a stark black suit of a similar make and model as Foggy's own dove-gray, with a bright red tie. His hair is tousled and dark and faintly rust-red at the right turns of the light, and his massive antlers are strung with peeling velvet rather than gore.

The look his sidhe-spouse shoots him over his shoulder is led with dark, unfocused eyes, and oh, that's what Marci meant by 'pretty little head.' His monstrous sidhe has made himself fair. That's - ominous.

"Alright," Foggy says quickly, putting his hands out to encourage everyone to simmer down. "Let's not make any hasty threats against beings of terrifying power and unpredictable temper."

Marci scoffs and rolls her eyes, but both she and Malcolm look relieved to see him upright and talking. Meanwhile, the sidhe seems somewhat flattered by Foggy's description of him, which is - not something Foggy's going to think about right now.

"Yeah, no," Malcolm says, cutting the sidhe a jaundiced look. "You married that thing, I think your judgment is in question from here on out."

Foggy's sidhe spouse doesn't look as if it exactly disagrees, but there are more pressing concerns, because it says, "You wanted allies in your fight against the one you know as Kilgrave. If you wish to avoid a war between your kind and mine, it would be beneficial to resolve this quickly." It smiles then, red lips and white teeth like flesh peeling back to bone and welling with blood. "It isn't a war you would win."

"You wanna bet," Marci asks with a pretty little vicious sneer, unimpressed as ever to face something ageless and made of star fire. "The last sidhe that underestimated us is nothing but smoke and ash."

"Then the last sidhe you crossed was a fool," it says impatiently, the peeling strips of velvet swaying on its antlers. "Kilgrave won't be, or he wouldn't still be alive. He partakes too much clay to underestimate your kind. You need knowledge and advantages that he won't expect you to have - I can give you these things."

"He's talking a disturbing amount of sense," Malcolm ventures, though he looks sick to admit it. He eyes the sidhe warily, looking faintly uneasy as it regards him back with blank, unseeing eyes. Finally, Malcolm's eyes dart toward Marci and Foggy. "Your business is your business," he says, shifting the bag hanging off his shoulder and stepping back. "But either way, Jessica gets final say as far as the sidhe and collateral damage are concerned." 

"Like Daughter of Zeus is going to let a sidhe within three blocks of her without trying to drop a building on him," Marci snaps with a roll of her eyes. Malcolm shrugs carelessly, cutting one last cautious look at Foggy's sidhe-spouse before he heads back outside for the car they'd arrived in. 

Marci turns a moue of disappointment and reproach toward Foggy, and with a burst of exasperation, he waves his arms at her and shrugs expansively. "What," he says, sharp and pointed. "We already had this argument! What's done is done." He'd made his decision to bind himself to the sidhe, not only to get it out of the hands of Kilgrave's minions, but because - but because - well. Not even a sidhe deserved to be caught in a trap like those wards. 

And of all of them, he's most expendable. It's not that Foggy's going to sacrifice himself or anything - he'd been almost certain his ploy would pay off, and it had. 

Marci looks deeply unimpressed, her arms folded across her chest. She looks no less than an extremely disappointed girlfriend, even if they'd never been that to each other. And now Foggy's sidhe-married to nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw, and well - sidhe tend to be very jealous creatures. 

"I hate to repeat myself," Marci says with a slow blink, "but I really, _really_ hope you know what you're doing." Glancing at the sidhe, she says, "I don't care how old or powerful you are, I will find a way to carve the heart from your chest and _eat it_ if you harm a single hair on Foggy-bear's head." 

It looks ultimately unimpressed, but tilts its head in consideration. With a testy click of her tongue, Marci sneers and turns away, headed the way that Malcolm went, leaving Foggy with his sidhe-spouse. He's just awkwardly considering following after when it turns its head toward him, and - and it _(he)_ is very, very good-looking, with that dark, endless unfocused gaze that touches something deep inside Foggy, where he is clay (and now fire and light, lingering around the edges, deep in the hidden recesses) and while not a self-conscious person, not for years, Foggy flushes hot and bright. 

The sidhe's mouth curls into a beatific smile, red in tooth and claw, and a chill strikes Foggy to the core in torturous contrast to the heat burning inside him. No sidhe is ever more terrible than when fair-faced and blind. 

This is what Foggy has allied himself with, tied his soul to, and now he'll have to live with it.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'sidhe' is actually a word for the place they live, but you know how people are when talking about stuff they don't know shit about. 
> 
> vague and unspecified circumstances are vague and unspecified! i accidentally this into my favorite au?? wow. 
> 
> also [antler velvet](https://www.google.com/search?q=antler+velvet&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHpZrSpePJAhUIKCYKHRr4D2gQ_AUICCgC&biw=1366&bih=631#tbm=isch&q=antler+velvet+shedding) for those who are unfamiliar with the term.


End file.
